From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishsink or swimsink or swimSUCCEED IN DOING somethingFAILto succeed or fail without help from anyone else They don’t give you a lot of guidance – you’re just left to sink or swim, really. → sink
Examples from the Corpus
sink or swim• Some people advocate leaving the jobless to sink or swim.• A case of sink or swim.• Now it was sink or swim.• She had been thrown in at the deep end and it was a question of sink or swim.• Only one person really cared whether he sank or swam, and he was far off in Paris.• It was sink or swim as a classroom teacher.• The Ohio bank does not leave its newcomers to sink or swim by themselves.• When a promising apprentice loses his claim it is usually sink or swim time.• But it is a collective machine because they all sink or swim with her. 