on the beach
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English
[edit]Prepositional phrase
[edit]- (idiomatic, nautical) Removed or retired from an active shipboard position in the navy or merchant navy.
- 1951, Nicholas Monsarrat, chapter 1, in The Cruel Sea, London: Cassell:
- Ericson had been axed from the navy in 1927, after ten years’ service: he had been on the beach for two hard years[.]
- 2023, Evan Wilson, The Horrible Peace: British Veterans and the End of the Napoleonic Wars, University of Massachusetts Press:
- [O]fficers received only half pay when not on active service. Even Horatio Nelson spent five years “on the beach”[.]
Related terms
[edit]- (military): furloughed
- (aviation): grounded