Word.ws English Dictionary

ships passing in the night

ships passing in the night is the alternative form of ships that pass in the night.

Meaning of ships that pass in the night

Noun

ships that pass in the night pl (plural only)

  1. (plural, plural-only, simile) Two or more people who encounter one another in a transitory, incidental manner and whose relationship is without lasting significance; two or more people who almost encounter one another, but do not do so.
    • [H]e sat down and we got into conversation. There wasn't time to talk much. . . . We got along famously. But—oh, well, it was just another case of ships that pass in the night.1922, P. G. Wodehouse, chapter 4, in The Girl on the Boat
  2. (broadly, plural, plural-only) Things which have no significant connection or commonality.
    • [T]he central figures in the action seem vaguely unrelated to one another, like ships passing in the night.1966 February 9, James Reston, “Ships Passing In The Night”, in St. Petersburg Times, retrieved 19 Oct 2013, page 14A

Questions about ships passing in the night

What is ships passing in the night the alternative form of?
Ships passing in the night is the alternative form of ships that pass in the night.

Words near ships passing in the night in the dictionary

  1. ships of the desert
  2. ships of the line
  3. ships of war
  4. ships out
  5. ships over
  6. ships passing in the night
  7. ships that pass in the night
  8. ships that passed in the night
  9. ships' companies
  10. ships' husbands
  11. ships-of-the-line

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: ships passing in the night (page history and authors); ships that pass in the night (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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