Word.ws English Dictionary

swallow the anchor

swallow the anchor verb: to leave the navy.

Verb

swallow the anchor (third-person singular simple present swallows the anchor, present participle swallowing the anchor, simple past and past participle swallowed the anchor)

  1. (slang) To leave the navy.
    • My grand pa was the carpenter on his ship, but had a few years before swallowed the anchor and stepped on land to repair boats.2008, Scott Telek, The Ghost Ship, page 184

Forms of swallow the anchor

third-person singular presentswallows the anchor
present participleswallowing the anchor
past participleswallowed the anchor
pastswallowed the anchor

Questions about swallow the anchor

What does swallow the anchor mean?
Swallow the anchor means to leave the navy.
What part of speech is swallow the anchor?
Swallow the anchor is a verb.
What is the past tense of swallow the anchor?
The past tense of swallow the anchor is swallowed the anchor.

Words near swallow the anchor in the dictionary

  1. swallow holes
  2. swallow one's pride
  3. swallow one's words
  4. swallow tanager
  5. swallow tanagers
  6. swallow the anchor
  7. swallow the dictionary
  8. swallow the leek
  9. swallow up
  10. swallow whole
  11. swallow wort

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: swallow the anchor (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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