See hold water on Wiktionary
Download JSON data for hold water meaning in All languages combined (4.5kB)
{
"etymology_text": "Possibly from the King James Version of Jeremiah 2:13: “For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.”",
"forms": [
{
"form": "holds water",
"tags": [
"present",
"singular",
"third-person"
]
},
{
"form": "holding water",
"tags": [
"participle",
"present"
]
},
{
"form": "held water",
"tags": [
"participle",
"past"
]
},
{
"form": "held water",
"tags": [
"past"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "hold<,,held> water"
},
"expansion": "hold water (third-person singular simple present holds water, present participle holding water, simple past and past participle held water)",
"name": "en-verb"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "verb",
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
"parents": [
"Entries with incorrect language header",
"Entry maintenance"
],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "English entries with language name categories using raw markup",
"parents": [
"Entries with language name categories using raw markup",
"Entry maintenance"
],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "English predicates",
"parents": [],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
"parents": [
"Terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
"Entry maintenance"
],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "Mandarin terms with redundant transliterations",
"parents": [
"Terms with redundant transliterations",
"Entry maintenance"
],
"source": "w"
},
{
"kind": "other",
"name": "Serbo-Croatian terms with redundant script codes",
"parents": [
"Terms with redundant script codes",
"Entry maintenance"
],
"source": "w"
}
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "2017 August 13, Brandon Nowalk, “Oldtown offers one last game-changing secret as Game Of Thrones goes behind enemy lines (newbies)”, in The Onion AV Club",
"text": "At the parlay, Tyrion also tries to claim Tywin’s murder was self-defense, which holds some water, and despite Jaime’s anger, I suspect he can see it from that side.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "1888, Horatio Alger, chapter 35, in The Errand Boy",
"text": "\"Young man,\" he said, \"upon this point I can only say that your story is grossly improbable. It won't hold water.\"",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"To withstand scrutiny or criticism; to be valid."
],
"id": "en-hold_water-en-verb-lraO8H2h",
"links": [
[
"scrutiny",
"scrutiny"
],
[
"criticism",
"criticism"
],
[
"valid",
"valid"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(idiomatic) To withstand scrutiny or criticism; to be valid."
],
"related": [
{
"word": "hold up"
},
{
"word": "hold one's water"
},
{
"word": "watertight"
}
],
"tags": [
"idiomatic"
],
"translations": [
{
"code": "cmn",
"lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
"roman": "zhàndezhù",
"sense": "withstand scrutiny",
"word": "站得住"
},
{
"code": "cmn",
"lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
"sense": "withstand scrutiny",
"word": "站得住腳"
},
{
"code": "cmn",
"lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
"roman": "zhàndezhù jiǎo",
"sense": "withstand scrutiny",
"word": "站得住脚"
},
{
"code": "cmn",
"lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
"roman": "chénglì",
"sense": "withstand scrutiny",
"word": "成立"
},
{
"code": "da",
"lang": "Danish",
"sense": "withstand scrutiny",
"word": "holde vand"
},
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "withstand scrutiny",
"word": "pitää vettä"
},
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "withstand scrutiny",
"word": "kestää tarkastelua"
},
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "withstand scrutiny",
"word": "olla vedenpitävä"
},
{
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"sense": "withstand scrutiny",
"word": "tenir la route"
},
{
"code": "it",
"lang": "Italian",
"sense": "withstand scrutiny",
"word": "reggere un ipotesi"
},
{
"code": "ru",
"lang": "Russian",
"roman": "vydérživatʹ kritiku",
"sense": "withstand scrutiny",
"word": "выде́рживать критику"
},
{
"code": "sh",
"lang": "Serbo-Croatian",
"sense": "withstand scrutiny",
"tags": [
"Cyrillic"
],
"word": "држати воду"
},
{
"code": "sh",
"lang": "Serbo-Croatian",
"sense": "withstand scrutiny",
"tags": [
"Latin"
],
"word": "držati vodu"
}
],
"wikipedia": [
"King James Version"
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"audio": "en-au-hold water.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/b/b9/En-au-hold_water.ogg/En-au-hold_water.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b9/En-au-hold_water.ogg",
"tags": [
"Australia"
],
"text": "Audio (AU)"
}
],
"word": "hold water"
}
{
"etymology_text": "Possibly from the King James Version of Jeremiah 2:13: “For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.”",
"forms": [
{
"form": "holds water",
"tags": [
"present",
"singular",
"third-person"
]
},
{
"form": "holding water",
"tags": [
"participle",
"present"
]
},
{
"form": "held water",
"tags": [
"participle",
"past"
]
},
{
"form": "held water",
"tags": [
"past"
]
}
],
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "hold<,,held> water"
},
"expansion": "hold water (third-person singular simple present holds water, present participle holding water, simple past and past participle held water)",
"name": "en-verb"
}
],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "verb",
"related": [
{
"word": "hold up"
},
{
"word": "hold one's water"
},
{
"word": "watertight"
}
],
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
"English entries with incorrect language header",
"English entries with language name categories using raw markup",
"English idioms",
"English lemmas",
"English multiword terms",
"English predicates",
"English terms with audio links",
"English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
"English terms with quotations",
"English verbs",
"Mandarin terms with redundant transliterations",
"Quotation templates to be cleaned",
"Serbo-Croatian terms with redundant script codes"
],
"examples": [
{
"ref": "2017 August 13, Brandon Nowalk, “Oldtown offers one last game-changing secret as Game Of Thrones goes behind enemy lines (newbies)”, in The Onion AV Club",
"text": "At the parlay, Tyrion also tries to claim Tywin’s murder was self-defense, which holds some water, and despite Jaime’s anger, I suspect he can see it from that side.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "1888, Horatio Alger, chapter 35, in The Errand Boy",
"text": "\"Young man,\" he said, \"upon this point I can only say that your story is grossly improbable. It won't hold water.\"",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"To withstand scrutiny or criticism; to be valid."
],
"links": [
[
"scrutiny",
"scrutiny"
],
[
"criticism",
"criticism"
],
[
"valid",
"valid"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(idiomatic) To withstand scrutiny or criticism; to be valid."
],
"tags": [
"idiomatic"
],
"wikipedia": [
"King James Version"
]
}
],
"sounds": [
{
"audio": "en-au-hold water.ogg",
"mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/b/b9/En-au-hold_water.ogg/En-au-hold_water.ogg.mp3",
"ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b9/En-au-hold_water.ogg",
"tags": [
"Australia"
],
"text": "Audio (AU)"
}
],
"translations": [
{
"code": "cmn",
"lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
"roman": "zhàndezhù",
"sense": "withstand scrutiny",
"word": "站得住"
},
{
"code": "cmn",
"lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
"sense": "withstand scrutiny",
"word": "站得住腳"
},
{
"code": "cmn",
"lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
"roman": "zhàndezhù jiǎo",
"sense": "withstand scrutiny",
"word": "站得住脚"
},
{
"code": "cmn",
"lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
"roman": "chénglì",
"sense": "withstand scrutiny",
"word": "成立"
},
{
"code": "da",
"lang": "Danish",
"sense": "withstand scrutiny",
"word": "holde vand"
},
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "withstand scrutiny",
"word": "pitää vettä"
},
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "withstand scrutiny",
"word": "kestää tarkastelua"
},
{
"code": "fi",
"lang": "Finnish",
"sense": "withstand scrutiny",
"word": "olla vedenpitävä"
},
{
"code": "fr",
"lang": "French",
"sense": "withstand scrutiny",
"word": "tenir la route"
},
{
"code": "it",
"lang": "Italian",
"sense": "withstand scrutiny",
"word": "reggere un ipotesi"
},
{
"code": "ru",
"lang": "Russian",
"roman": "vydérživatʹ kritiku",
"sense": "withstand scrutiny",
"word": "выде́рживать критику"
},
{
"code": "sh",
"lang": "Serbo-Croatian",
"sense": "withstand scrutiny",
"tags": [
"Cyrillic"
],
"word": "држати воду"
},
{
"code": "sh",
"lang": "Serbo-Croatian",
"sense": "withstand scrutiny",
"tags": [
"Latin"
],
"word": "držati vodu"
}
],
"word": "hold water"
}
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-04-30 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (210104c and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.
If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.