Meanings
present singular third person votes off the island · participle present voting off the island · participle past voted off the island · past voted off the island
- idiomaticinformalTo reject or eliminate.
"Look, I'm thorry." I winced. "Sorry. I'm an idiot, okay? A total jerk. I deserve to be voted off the island. […]
2008, Robin Stevenson, Impossible Things, page 1042 more examples
At places like Razorfish, the burden of deciding who to vote off the island had brought emotional injury to the middle managers who had been asked to make employee assessments.
2002, Andrew Ross, No-Collar: The Inhumane Workplace and Its Hidden Costs, page 220I mean, it [rowing] wasn't a varsity sport at most colleges anymore and hadn't been for years. If I got to college and couldn't sustain my studies and crew, there could be only one choice of which I'd vote off the island. I could always pick crew back up after I graduated.
2015, Christopher Koelher, Poz, page 66
Origin
Coined with reference to reality game show Survivor, in which contestants must survive after being deliberately stranded in a remote location (such as a tropical island), with one being eliminated from the competition each week by a vote.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
vote off the island. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/vote%20off%20the%20island
“vote off the island.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/vote%20off%20the%20island. Accessed November 5, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “vote off the island,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/vote%20off%20the%20island.
Source: vote off the island on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.