Word.ws English Dictionary

tie oneself to the mast

tie oneself to the mast is the alternative form of lash oneself to the mast.

Meaning of lash oneself to the mast

Verb (1)

lash oneself to the mast (third-person singular simple present lashes oneself to the mast, present participle lashing oneself to the mast, simple past and past participle lashed oneself to the mast)

  1. To continue in a course of action even when facing great difficulties and likely disaster.
    • I hoped not—all authorities seemed to agree the only thing a man could do in such weather was lash himself to the mast and pray. I made a last stubborn attempt to pour logic on the troubled waters.2010, Robert A. Heinlein, Spider Robinson, Variable Star

Verb (2)

lash oneself to the mast (third-person singular simple present lashes oneself to the mast, present participle lashing oneself to the mast, simple past and past participle lashed oneself to the mast)

  1. To resist the temptation to make a bad choice.
    • The only way in which she could contain her despairing and murderous rage was to lash herself to the mast of her towering superego.2002, Bernardine Bishop, Ideas in Practice, page 34

Forms of tie oneself to the mast

third-person singular presentties oneself to the mast
present participletying oneself to the mast
past participletied oneself to the mast
pasttied oneself to the mast

Questions about tie oneself to the mast

What is tie oneself to the mast the alternative form of?
Tie oneself to the mast is the alternative form of lash oneself to the mast.

Words near tie oneself to the mast in the dictionary

  1. tie ins
  2. tie into
  3. tie off
  4. tie one on
  5. tie oneself in knots
  6. tie oneself to the mast
  7. tie oneself up in knots
  8. tie out
  9. tie over
  10. tie periwig
  11. tie periwigs

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: tie oneself to the mast (page history and authors); lash oneself to the mast (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: “tie oneself to the mast.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/tie_oneself_to_the_mast. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.