flying dutchman

1. 1.

   the captain of a phantom ship (the Flying Dutchman) who was condemned to sail against the wind until Judgment Day

   Broaderapparition
2. 2.

   a phantom ship that is said to appear in storms near the Cape of Good Hope

   Broaderapparition

Questions about flying dutchman

What does flying dutchman mean?

flying dutchman means "the captain of a phantom ship (the Flying Dutchman) who was condemned to sail against the wind until Judgment Day". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

Is flying dutchman a common word?

flying dutchman is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.