on the beach

prepositional phrase

Removed or retired from an active shipboard position in the navy or merchant navy.

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Meanings

prepositional phrase
  1. idiomaticnauticalRemoved or retired from an active shipboard position in the navy or merchant navy.

    Ericson had been axed from the navy in 1927, after ten years’ service: he had been on the beach for two hard years[.]

    1951, Nicholas Monsarrat, chapter 1, in The Cruel Sea, London: Cassell
    1 more example

    [O]fficers received only half pay when not on active service. Even Horatio Nelson spent five years “on the beach”[.]

    2023, Evan Wilson, The Horrible Peace: British Veterans and the End of the Napoleonic Wars, University of Massachusetts Press
Cite this entry
APA

on the beach. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/on%20the%20beach

MLA

“on the beach.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/on%20the%20beach. Accessed November 5, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “on the beach,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/on%20the%20beach.

Source: on the beach on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.