or -tide. TO BE IN LOW-WATER (or AT LOW-TIDE), verb. phr. (colloquial).—To be in difficulties, or penniless.
c. 1696. B. E., A New Dictionary of the Canting Crew, s.v. LOW-TIDE, when there’s no Money in a Man’s Pocket.
1725. A New Canting Dictionary, s.v.
1785. GROSE, A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, s.v.
1837. DICKENS, Oliver Twist, viii. I’m at LOW-WATER MARK, only one bob and a magpie.
1885. Chambers’s Journal, 21 Feb., p. 125. Or who, having been ‘put away,’ and done their time, found themselves in LOW WATER upon their return to the outer world.
1886. M. E. BRADDON, Mohawks, ch. iv. Then came talk of ways and means. His lordship was in LOW WATER financially.
