Water

subs. (Westminster School).—Boating; aquatics; the Eton WET-BOBBING (q.v.).

  1881.  PASCOE, ed. Everyday Life in Our Public Schools, 131. ‘WATER,’ as it is called at Westminster, is now in a very flourishing condition.

  Verb (old).—1.  To drink: see LUSH.

  1598.  SHAKESPEARE, 1 Henry IV., ii. 4. When you breathe in your WATERINGS, they cry ‘hem!’

  1607.  DEKKER, Westward Ho! ii. 1. A certain well where all the Muses WATERED.

  2.  (old).—To urinate; PISS (q.v.); also TO MAKE WATER, TO WATER THE DRAGON, and TO WATER ONE’S NAG. Whence (venery) WATERWORKS = the urinary organs male or female: also WATER-ENGINE (see WATER-DROP); WATER-BOX (GAP, COURSE, GATE, etc.) = the female pudendum: see MONOSYLLABLE; WATER-CASTER (-DOCTOR or WATEROLOGER) = a urine-inspecting physician: spec. a quack; TO CAST WATER = to diagnose by means of the urine.

  c. 1350.  The Tale of the Basyn [HAZLITT, Remains of the Early Popular Poetry of England, III. 47].

  1598.  MARSTON, Satires, iv. 125.

  1598.  FLORIO, A Worlde of Wordes (1611), 185. [WATER-BOX = female pudendum.]

  1606.  SHAKESPEARE, Macbeth, v. 3.

  1607.  W. S., The Puritaine, iv. 1. There’s physicians enough to CAST HIS WATER: is that any matter to us?

  1630.  TAYLOR (‘The Water Poet’), Workes.

    Ibid. Which was the fare of Quack saluers, Mountebankes, Ratcatching WATERCASTERS, and also for all botching Artificers and cobling Tradesmen.

  1653.  URQUHART, Rabelais, I. 20.

  1678.  Quack’s Academy [Harleian Miscellany, II. 34]. You must either pretend to be WATEROLOGERS … or star-wizards.

  1706.  WARD, The Wooden World Dissected, 39. He is acquainted with the Nature and Depths of all Soundings but that of his Wife’s WATER-COURSE.

  CANTERBURY-WATER, subs. phr. (old).—The blood of Thomas à Becket diluted with water: Archbishop of Canterbury, murdered in 1170, canonised as a saint and martyr.

  1849–54.  D. ROCK, Church of our Fathers, III. i. 424. To satisfy these cravings, so as to hinder an uneasy feeling at the thought of tasting human blood, a tiny drop was mingled with a chalice-full of water, and in this manner given to those who begged a sip. This was the far-famed ‘CANTERBURY-WATER.’

  BURNING-WATER (q.v., vol. i. ante).

  3.  (commercial).—To increase nominal capital by the issue of shares for which, though they rank for interest, no additional increase in the actual capital has been provided: the practice, it is urged, is justified by profits already earned, or by a supposed enhancement of the value of the property, franchises, etc.; but watering is usually only resorted to by companies on the down grade. Hence as subs. = additional shares created in this way.

  1878.  Scribner’s Magazine, Oct., 896. Those which relate to the betrayal of trusts, the WATERING of stocks.

  1887.  North American Review, cxliii. 92. By the much-abused word ‘property’ he referred, of course, to the fictitious capital, or WATER, which the gas companies had added to their real capital.

  1888.  St. James’s Gazette, 14 June. But it is said by the chairman of the Committee on Public Finance, that ‘more than half of this stock is WATER, and could not have come into existence had not this business been superior to the control of competition.’

  1888.  Fortnightly Review, xliii. 857. The stock of some of the railways has been WATERED to an enormous extent by the issue of fictitious capital, existing only on paper, though ranking equally for dividend, when money for this is forthcoming. Usually the paper stock has been sold to unwary customers.

  PHRASES.  ABOVE WATER = unembarrassed, untroubled, in (or of) easy circumstances, mind, or the like: whence TO KEEP ONE’S HEAD ABOVE WATER = to struggle through (or overcome) financial difficulties; BETWEEN WIND AND WATER (see WIND); IN DEEP WATER = (1) in trial, trouble, distress; (2) impecunious, reduced in circumstances: hence DEEP WATERS = tribulation of sorts; OF THE FIRST WATER = the highest, A1: properly of a diamond free of blemish, flaw, colour, or any imperfection; TO MAKE A HOLE IN THE WATER = to fall in it: spec. to commit suicide by drowning: cf. ‘to make a hole in the silence’ = to speak; OIL ON TROUBLED WATERS = anything to allay, assuage: the practice is ancient, being known to the Greeks and Romans, and its efficacy is frequently tested by modern seamen; TO BE IN HOT WATER = to be in trouble, difficulties, or disgrace; TO SHOW WATER = to bribe, to produce a fee; TO CAST ONE’S WATER (see verb. 2); TO CAST WATER INTO THE THAMES = to do the unnecessary or useless (see THAMES); TO HOLD WATER = to prove serviceable or adequate; TO TAKE WATER = to back out (or down), to WEAKEN (q.v.): as a boat when allowed to fall in the wake of another in a race; TO DRAW WATER WITH A SIEVE = to act absurdly; TO THROW COLD WATER ON = to discourage, damp one’s ardour, interest, or chances; WATER IN ONE’S SHOES = a cause of annoyance or discomfort; TO WATER ONE’S PLANTS = to shed tears. Also proverbially: ‘My mouth WATERS’ = a simile of strong appetite or longing desire: also said of the teeth; ‘That’s where the WATER sticks’ = That’s the point in dispute; ‘All WATER runs to his mill’ = ‘Fortune smiles on him,’ ‘Everything goes his way’; ‘No safe wading in an unknown WATER’; ‘Often to the WATER, often to the tatter’; ‘Foul WATER will quench fire’; ‘Where the WATER is shallow no vessel will ride’; ‘WATER breeds frogs in the belly, and wine cures the worms’; ‘I’ll make him WATER his horse at Highgate’ (i.e., ‘I’ll sue him and make him take a journey up to London’—RAY); ‘The malt’s above the WATER’ = He’s drunk (see SCREWED).

  1530.  PALSGRAVE, Langue Francoyse. My TETHE WATERS to see.

  1546.  HEYWOOD, Proverbs, 69.

  1593.  PETER MARTYR OF ANGLERIA [tr. R. EDEN, The First Three English Books on America (ARBER), 181]. In theyr mindes they conceaued a hope of a dainty banquet, And espying their enemies a farre of beganne to swalowe theyr spettle as their MOUTHES WATERED for gredines of theyr pray.

  1581.  J. LYLY, Euphues, ‘To Philuntus,’ M4. Neither WATER THOU THY PLANTS, in that thou departest from thy pigges nie, neither stand in a mammering, whether it bee best to depart or not.

  1609.  SHAKESPEARE, Pericles, iv. 2. A Spaniard’s mouth so WATERED.

  1611.  Bible, Authorised Version, Psalm lxix. 14. Let me be delivered from them that hate me, and out of the DEEP WATERS.

  1623.  MABBE, The Spanish Rogue (1630), ii. 79. [It] WILL NOT HOLD WATER.

  1632.  MASSINGER, The Maid of Honour, i. 1.

  1650.  SIR A. WELDON, The Court and Character of King James (1817), 19. All THE WATER RUNS TO THEIR MILLS [applied to the Howards, who got everything at Court].

  d. 1663.  BRAMHALL, Works, ii. 366. That the reader may see clearly WHERE THE WATER STICKS between us.

  1698.  FARQUHAR, Love and a Bottle, v. 1. O, my little green gooseberry; my TEETH WATERS at thee.

  1742–4.  R. NORTH, The Life of Lord Guildford, i. 295. They caressed his lordship very much as a new comer, whom they were glad of the honour to meet, and talked about a time to dine with him; all which (as they say) was WATER IN HIS SHOES.

  1809.  MALKIN, Gil Blas [ROUTLEDGE], 104. You have made my MOUTH WATER to serve such a worshipful fraternity. Ibid., 254. The brilliants … made her eyes sparkle and her MOUTH WATER.

  1846.  Punch’s Almanack, 29 Nov. The Times first printed by steam, 1814, and has kept the country IN HOT WATER ever since.

  1857.  C. READE, Jack of All Trades, in Harper’s Magazine, xvi. 109. One comfort, folk are beginning to take an interest in us; I see nobs OF THE FIRST WATER looking with a fatherly eye into our affairs.

  1864.  MARK LEMON, The Jest Book, 238. Show me the blade that is not out of temper when plunged into HOT WATER.

  18[?].  W. S. GILBERT, Etiquette. For the thought of Peter’s oysters brought the WATER TO HIS MOUTH.

  1885.  The Field, 3 Oct. A number of struggling men, who have managed TO KEEP ABOVE WATER during the bad seasons, must now go under.

  1886.  JAMES WARD, ‘Psychology’ [Encyclopædia Britannica, 9th ed., xx. 57]. The dog’s MOUTH WATERS only at the sight of food, but the gourmand’s MOUTH will also WATER at the thought of it.

  1892.  MILLIKEN, ’Arry Ballads, 76, ‘On Marriage.’ I should just make a ’OLE IN THE WATER, if ’tworn’t for the wife and the kids.