sink or swim

Syllable breakdown

Dictionary meaning

to succeed or fail entirely through one's own efforts in a situation where no external support, safety net, or rescue is available, forced to rely entirely on one's own capabilities and determination to survive a challenging circumstance; the phrase captures a deliberately unforgiving philosophy of learning and development that values trial by total immersion over gradual guided instruction, asserting that the best way to develop capability is to expose individuals directly to the full consequences of their performance without cushioning them from failure; it is used descriptively of high-stakes situations without safety nets and prescriptively as an argument against excessive support systems that might prevent people from developing the resilience that hardship teaches