rudderless ship
1
7.8
- noun
- /ˈrʌdərləs ʃɪp/
:
barco sin rumbo
- After losing their mentor, the students were a rudderless ship, unsure of their next steps.
Examples
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What is needed most is a lawyer who knows science to steer this rudderless ship or at least be substantially involved.
Blog text (18) -
I predict that by three weeks out, if the polls remain the same, his backers will pull the plug and the rudderless ship will finally sink below the electoral waves.
Blog text (23) -
Now he will be a rudderless ship in the middle of Hurricane Obama.
Blog text (29) -
Now he will be a rudderless ship in the middle of Hurricane Obama!
Blog text (29) -
In the absence of a leader, the organization became a rudderless ship drifting aimlessly.
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The team felt like a rudderless ship without a clear goal to guide their efforts.
How Directionless
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly derivable from the parts: 'rudderless' (without a rudder = lacking direction) combined with 'ship' (a vessel) yields the metaphor of a group or person lacking direction or leadership. This vessel-as-organization metaphor and the productive '-less' formation are cross-linguistically common, so a B1 learner who knows the constituents should be able to infer the MWE's meaning.
Etymology
The expression rudderless ship comes from the image of a real ship with no rudder to steer it, so it just drifts on the water. That's why people call a person or group a rudderless ship when they have no 'direction' or 'leadership'.