lash oneself to the mast
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.00 in modern English
31
Scrabble Score
20
Letters
4
Syllables
10
Unique Chars
Meaning
verb
To continue in a course of action even when facing great difficulties and likely disaster.
verb
To resist the temptation to make a bad choice.
Example Sentences
- "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."
- "At the same time, even as he and Bobby still plot to overthrow Fidel, they are at odds over whether to dump Vietnam's president Diêm overboard, or lash him to the mast and ride out the gale blowing in from Vietnam."
- "She was not going to allow Gregory Winston Fallows to throw his life—and hers—away. Whatever demons were torturing him, she vowed that she would lash herself to the mast and hold on."
- "Vance did not have to lash himself to the mast of the sinking Confederate ship and go down nobly to principled defeat."
- "Kruse, in a Vanity Fair article published on November 27, writes that during the impeachment inquiry presently taking place in the U.S. House of Representatives, “Trump loyalists” have “lashed themselves to the presidential mast” — and Kruse stresses that “if Watergate is an American parable, most of them will go down too.”"
- "The only way in which she could contain her despairing and murderous rage was to lash herself to the mast of her towering superego."