deep water

Also found in: Thesaurus, Acronyms, Idioms, Encyclopedia, Wikipedia.

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

Switch to new thesaurus

Noun

deep water - serious trouble

trouble, problem - a source of difficulty; "one trouble after another delayed the job"; "what's the problem?"

deep water

noun

A difficult, often embarrassing situation or condition:

box, corner, difficulty, dilemma, Dutch, fix, hole, hot spot, hot water, jam, plight, predicament, quagmire, scrape, soup, trouble.

Informal: bind, pickle, spot.

References in classic literature ?

Sometimes it would come floating up to the shore; but when you went toward it, it would go back into deep water and disappear.

View in context

In his fright he throws a somerset into the deep water.

View in context

Their heads were the most foolish-looking things you ever saw, and they balanced on the ends of their tails in deep water when they weren't grazing, bowing solemnly to each other and waving their front flippers as a fat man waves his arm.

View in context

And at last the ship plunged right down to the bottom of the sea, making a dreadful gurgling sound; and the six bad men were left bobbing about in the deep water of the bay.

View in context

But scarcely had her tender feet touched the cool ripples when she felt a great shove on her shoulders, and the wicked witch had pushed her into the deep water, exclaiming:

View in context

A platform of wood was built out from the bank, to be used for bathing by good swimmers who were not afraid of a plunge into deep water.

View in context

Commander Farragut thought, and with reason, that it was better to remain in deep water, and keep clear of continents or islands, which the beast itself seemed to shun

View in context

He drove so directly to the core of the matter, divesting a question always of all superfluous details, and with such an air of finality, that I seemed to find myself struggling in deep water, with no footing under me.

View in context

In about an hour they returned and reported deep water through the passage as well as far into the little basin.

View in context

Therein he slew Thersilochus, Mydon, Astypylus, Mnesus, Thrasius, Oeneus, and Ophelestes, and he would have slain yet others, had not the river in anger taken human form, and spoken to him from out the deep waters saying, "Achilles, if you excel all in strength, so do you also in wickedness, for the gods are ever with you to protect you: if, then, the son of Saturn has vouchsafed it to you to destroy all the Trojans, at any rate drive them out of my stream, and do your grim work on land.

View in context

Thank the Lord, we have left the deep waters (honduras)' that being the Spanish word for unfathomable depths.

View in context

There sat the man who had traced to their source the mighty ponds of Hampstead, and agitated the scientific world with his Theory of Tittlebats, as calm and unmoved as the deep waters of the one on a frosty day, or as a solitary specimen of the other in the inmost recesses of an earthen jar.