man overboard

English

Pronunciation

  • Audio (Southern England):(file)

Interjection

man overboard!

  1. (nautical) A cry used to announce that one of the crew or passengers has fallen over the side of the vessel.
    • 1913, Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Return of Tarzan, New York: Ballantine Books, published 1963, page 105:
      Hazel Strong was looking from her darkened port across the dark sea. Suddenly a body shot past her eyes from the deck above. It dropped so quickly into the dark waters below that she could not be sure of what it was—it might have been a man, she could not say. She listened for some outcry from above—for the always-fearsome call, “Man overboard!” but it did not come. All was silence on the ship above—all was silence in the sea below.

Usage notes

The cry is always man overboard, regardless of the gender of the person involved.

Translations