ships that pass in the night

Cultural  

1. Often said of people who meet for a brief but intense moment and then part, never to see each other again. These people are like two ships that greet each other with flashing lights and then sail off into the night. From a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

---

ships that pass in the night Idioms  

1. Individuals who are rarely in the same place at the same time. For example, Jan works the early shift and Paula the late shift—they're two ships that pass in the night. This metaphoric expression comes from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem “The Theologian's Tale” (published in Tales of a Wayside Inn, 1873).

---

Example Sentences

"We are always going in different directions, like ships that pass in the night really. We whizz past each other."

From BBC • Apr. 12, 2025

I appreciate that this is the only time Evan Rachel Wood or James Marsden will probably recognize that you exist, but yours are ships that pass in the night.

From The Verge • Apr. 20, 2018

Such attitudes tend to confirm Ho Chi Minh's opinion that democratic governments are like "ships that pass in the night."

From Time Magazine Archive

The old men looked down, watching their own footsteps; and their stooping figures were vague and shadowy as ships that pass in the night, not to be recognized if seen again by daylight.

From The Guests Of Hercules by Bracker, M. Leone

There were heads and faces, and architectural scraps, trees and animals, and bits of landscape and ships that pass in the night.

From Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 02 Little Journeys To the Homes of Famous Women by Hubbard, Elbert