Word.ws English Dictionary

walk the plank

UK/ˈwɔːk ðə ˈplænk/US/ˈwɔk ðə ˈplænk/

walk the plank verb: on an early naval vessel or pirate ship: to be forced to walk off the end of a gangplank (a plank of wood extending outwards from the side of the vessel) and plunge into the ocean and drown, used as a method of killing.

walk the plank: on an early naval vessel or pirate ship: to be forced to walk off the end of a gangplank (a plank...
Image: Howard Pyle, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Verb

walk the plank (third-person singular simple present walks the plank, present participle walking the plank, simple past and past participle walked the plank)

  1. (also, figuratively, historical) On an early naval vessel or pirate ship: to be forced to walk off the end of a gangplank (a plank of wood extending outwards from the side of the vessel) and plunge into the ocean and drown, used as a method of killing.
    • Walking the Plank. A mode of deſtroying devoted perſons or officers in a mutiny on ſhip-board, by blindfolding them, and obliging them to walk on a plank laid over the ſhip's ſide; by this means, as the mutineers ſuppoſe, avoiding the penalty of murder.[1788, [Francis Grose], “Walking the Plank”, in A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, 2nd edition, London: […] S[amuel] Hooper, […], →OCLC
    • Wo unto the crews of such English vessels as now fell into his [Blackbeard's] hands! he showed them no mercy; they either walked the plank, or the hatches were nailed down upon them, and they went down in the scuttled ship.1835, chapter XI, in Blackbeard. A Page from the Colonial History of Philadelphia. […], volume II, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], →OCLC, page 137
  2. (idiomatic) To be forced to resign from a position in an organization.
    • After he was caught selling company secrets, it’s not surprising they made him walk the plank.
    • I forgot that I had been given the place as a "political reward." I was immediately reminded of it by the expectations of those political "workers" whom the Board of County Commissioners wished me to appoint to officers in my court. […] When I refused to make a single clerk "walk the plank," their...1910, Ben[jamin] B[arr] Lindsey, Harvey J[errold] O’Higgins, “The Beast in the County Court”, in The Beast, New York, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, →OCLC, page 77

Examples of walk the plank in a sentence

  • [I]t is quite a painful reflection how many whole crews we have made to walk the plank for no more than a stock of biscuit or an anker or two of spirit.1889, Robert Louis Stevenson, “The Master’s Wanderings”, in The Master of Ballantrae. […], London; Paris: Cassell & Company, […], →OCLC...
  • Six of them, he said, were to walk the plank at once, but he would save any two who were willing to be cabin boys.[1915?], Daniel O’Connor, “The Pirate Ship”, in The Story of Peter Pan: Retold from the Fairy Play by Sir J. M. Barrie, Toronto, Ont.: The...
  • It has often been written that pirates commonly killed their prisoners, usually by the picturesque method of making them ‘walk the plank.’ This is untrue.1953, Patrick Pringle, “On the Account”, in Jolly Roger: The Story of the Great Age of Piracy, Mineola, N.Y.: Dover Publications, published...
  • Did he remember summoning Democrats to walk the plank for this?2009, Taylor Branch, The Clinton Tapes: Wrestling History with the President, New York, N.Y.: Simon & Schuster, →ISBN:

Synonyms of walk the plank

Forms of walk the plank

third-person singular presentwalks the plank
present participlewalking the plank
past participlewalked the plank
pastwalked the plank

Questions about walk the plank

What does walk the plank mean?
Walk the plank means on an early naval vessel or pirate ship: to be forced to walk off the end of a gangplank (a plank of wood extending outwards from the side of the vessel) and plunge into the ocean and drown, used as a method of killing.
How do you use walk the plank in a sentence?
[I]t is quite a painful reflection how many whole crews we have made to walk the plank for no more than a stock of biscuit or an anker or two of spirit.
What part of speech is walk the plank?
Walk the plank is a verb.
How do you pronounce walk the plank?
Walk the plank is pronounced /ˈwɔːk ðə ˈplænk/ (UK).
What is the past tense of walk the plank?
The past tense of walk the plank is walked the plank.

Words near walk the plank in the dictionary

  1. walk the dog
  2. walk the floor
  3. walk the gangplank
  4. walk the hospitals
  5. walk the line
  6. walk the plank
  7. walk the streets
  8. walk the talk
  9. walk the walk
  10. walk through
  11. walk turkey

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: walk the plank (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-walk the plank.ogg.

Cite this entry: “walk the plank.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/walk_the_plank. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.