the-captain-goes-down-with-the-ship
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Detailed reference entry for the English word "the-captain-goes-down-with-the-ship", 35-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Wiktionary, and usage frequency ranked against an open word-frequency list covering the top 100,000 English words. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "the-captain-goes-down-with-the-ship" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "the-captain-goes-down-with-the-ship" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
The verdict
“the captain goes down with the ship” is outside the top-ranked English vocabulary, used as a proverb - the kind of word writers most often double-check.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 35
- letters
Dominant Wiktionary sense: A leader is ultimately responsible for the penalities of a catastrophe, even if they result from external causes or the misactions of others under the leader's purview.
Compare similar words
See how the captain goes down with the ship compares against similar English words.
Browse all word comparisons →| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | the captain goes down with the ship |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Proverb |
| Letters | 35 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “the captain goes down with the ship” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for the captain goes down with the ship is 35 letters long, classified as a proverb. It sits outside the most-frequent rank tiers, which is often why uncommon words generate more spelling variants per reader. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "A leader is ultimately responsible for the penalities of a catastrophe, even if they result from external causes or the misactions of others under the leader's purview.".
No misspelling variants are generated for the captain goes down with the ship in our index, suggesting the orthography follows predictable English patterns. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
Etymologically, the entry records: From the maritime tradition that a sea captain holds ultimate responsibility for both their ship and everyone embarked on it, and in an emergency will either save those on board or die trying. Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is the captain goes down with the ship, spelled T-H-E- -C-A-P-T-A-I-N- -G-O-E-S- -D-O-W-N- -W-I-T-H- -T-H-E- -S-H-I-P, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A leader is ultimately responsible for the penalities of a catastrophe, even if they result from external causes or the misactions of others under the leader's purview.
Etymology
From the maritime tradition that a sea captain holds ultimate responsibility for both their ship and everyone embarked on it, and in an emergency will either save those on board or die trying.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Cite this page
Free to reuse with attribution (CC BY-SA). Copy the citation:
PlainSpell, “the captain goes down with the ship, English word data” (May 6, 2026). Derived from Wiktionary (kaikki.org, CC BY-SA) and an open word-frequency list. https://plainspell.com/en/word/the-captain-goes-down-with-the-ship
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Using “the captain goes down with the ship”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is T-H-E- -C-A-P-T-A-I-N- -G-O-E-S- -D-O-W-N- -W-I-T-H- -T-H-E- -S-H-I-P - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter T in our English index: