abandon ship

abandon ship (third-person singular simple present abandons ship, present participle abandoning ship, simple past and past participle abandoned ship)

1. (nautical, literal) To leave or forsake a ship due to its impending doom.
   • 2019 February 27, Drachinifel, 28:44 from the start, in The Battle of Samar - Odds? What are those?‎^[1], archived from the original on 3 November 2022:

     However, an 8-inch shell takes out what's left of Hoel's engines, and the ship is rapidly overwhelmed by incoming fire. The order to abandon ship is given ten minutes later after trading fire with a Tone-class cruiser, and, fifteen minutes after that, the ship rolls over and sinks, Hoel clearly not showing quite the same level of luck as Johnston.

2. (by extension) To leave a person or organization when things become difficult.

• like rats from a sinking ship
• jump ship

• Christine A. Lindberg, editor (2002), “abandon ship”, in The Oxford College Dictionary, 2nd edition, New York, N.Y.: Spark Publishing, →ISBN, page 1.