Word.ws English Dictionary

down the hatch

down the hatch prepositional phrase: into the mouth and down the throat, especially with regard to the consumption of a beverage.

Prepositional phrase

  1. (informal) Into the mouth and down the throat, especially with regard to the consumption of a beverage.
    • In Cairo, the New York Herald Tribune's correspondent, John ("Tex") O'Reilly, found U.S. soldiers no less infected with the new English language: "When two Americans are having a drink they no longer shout ‘Down the hatch!’ They raise their glasses and say ‘Cheers’ in modulated tones."1943 March 22, “AIR: You've Had It”, in Time, retrieved 07 Feb 2010
    • As waiters brought trays of meat, the guests reached over and harvested the pink slices with their bare hands, popping them down the hatch.2008 January 30, Paul Lukas, “Gluttonous Rite Survives Without Silverware”, in New York Times, retrieved 07 Feb 2010

Questions about down the hatch

What does down the hatch mean?
Down the hatch means into the mouth and down the throat, especially with regard to the consumption of a beverage.
What part of speech is down the hatch?
Down the hatch is a prepositional phrase.

Words near down the hatch in the dictionary

  1. down tacks
  2. down the banks
  3. down the cludgie
  4. down the drain
  5. down the gurgler
  6. down the hatch
  7. down the house
  8. down the khazi
  9. down the line
  10. down the middle
  11. down the pan

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: down the hatch (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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