Idiom
one's ship comes in
Meaning
One makes or comes into possession of a significant amount of money.
Meaning adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Examples
“He plans to buy a boat once his ship comes in.”
“I will treat you to a fancy dinner when my ship comes in.”
“She invested all her savings in that small company, hoping that one day her ship would come in.”
“The young artist worked three jobs while waiting for her ship to come in through a major gallery deal.”
“After years of struggling to make ends meet, he finally received the inheritance that ensured his ship had truly come in.”
Examples
simple
“He plans to buy a boat once his ship comes in.”
“I will treat you to a fancy dinner when my ship comes in.”
contextual
“She invested all her savings in that small company, hoping that one day her ship would come in.”
“The young artist worked three jobs while waiting for her ship to come in through a major gallery deal.”
complex
“After years of struggling to make ends meet, he finally received the inheritance that ensured his ship had truly come in.”
Origin
The idiom derives from the mercantile practice of shipping goods abroad for sale, a venture that required the investor to await the vessel's return to port before any profit could be realised. Until the ship docked, the merchant possessed only a theoretical fortune; the arrival of the hull in the harbour transformed this potential into liquid capital. The phrase persists as a metaphor for the arrival of long-delayed prosperity, though modern finance has largely replaced the physical horizon with the digital balance sheet.
Key words
Related idioms
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