Word.ws English Dictionary

swallowing the anchor

swallowing the anchor is the present participle and gerund of swallow the anchor.

Meaning of swallow the anchor

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

Questions about swallowing the anchor

What is swallowing the anchor the present participle and gerund of?
Swallowing the anchor is the present participle and gerund of swallow the anchor.

Words near swallowing the anchor in the dictionary

  1. swallowing
  2. swallowing a bitter pill
  3. swallowing down
  4. swallowing one's pride
  5. swallowing one's words
  6. swallowing the anchor
  7. swallowing the dictionary
  8. swallowing the leek
  9. swallowing up
  10. swallowings
  11. swallowlike

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: swallowing the anchor (page history and authors); 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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Cite this entry: “swallowing the anchor.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/swallowing_the_anchor. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.