walk the plank
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
to be forced to resign or leave a job
Literally: to walk off a wooden plank
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
Kevin Keegan, Glenn Hoddle or Ron Atkinson, all loved by the media, would merely be walking the plank towards a couple of defeats.
Whoever was the ‘ brains’ behind CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS: THE DISCOVERY (Cert 15; General) should be made to walk the plank.
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. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-31; pending editor spot-check.
Common questions
What does “walk the plank” mean?
to be forced to resign or leave a job Literally: to walk off a wooden plank
Is “walk the plank” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.