at sea
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
What we mean by this, is that at times of great stress we can all be overwhelmed by the experience and find ourselves ‘ at sea’, not knowing what to do.
Winters in California perhaps thought himself securely distant from the seat of the infection; he never visited Europe, still less was he tempted to expatriate himself.
British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)
Sources & notes
Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Figurative class: Metaphor (PIE-English corpus, CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-31).
Common questions
What does “at sea” mean?
Confused.
Is “at sea” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.