"walk on water" meaning in English

See walk on water in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Audio: En-au-walk on water.ogg [Australia] Forms: walks on water [present, singular, third-person], walking on water [participle, present], walked on water [participle, past], walked on water [past]
Etymology: From the miracle of Jesus walking on water, described in the Gospels. Head templates: {{en-verb|*}} walk on water (third-person singular simple present walks on water, present participle walking on water, simple past and past participle walked on water)
  1. (idiomatic, in hypothetical constructions) To perform godlike or superhuman feats. Tags: idiomatic Categories (topical): Christianity
    Sense id: en-walk_on_water-en-verb-UYGoA~yF Disambiguation of Christianity: 100 0 Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, English entries with topic categories using raw markup, English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 61 39 Disambiguation of English entries with topic categories using raw markup: 79 21 Disambiguation of English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys: 83 17
  2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see walk, water.
    Sense id: en-walk_on_water-en-verb-epSABEbL

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for walk on water meaning in English (2.9kB)

{
  "etymology_text": "From the miracle of Jesus walking on water, described in the Gospels.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "walks on water",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "walking on water",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "walked on water",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "walked on water",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "walk on water (third-person singular simple present walks on water, present participle walking on water, simple past and past participle walked on water)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "61 39",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "79 21",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with topic categories using raw markup",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with topic categories using raw markup",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "83 17",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
          "parents": [
            "Terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "100 0",
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Christianity",
          "orig": "en:Christianity",
          "parents": [
            "Abrahamism",
            "Religion",
            "Culture",
            "Society",
            "All topics",
            "Fundamental"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "He may be rich and influential, but he can't walk on water.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "text": "After the day I had today, I feel like I could walk on water.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1979, “New Dawn Fades”, in Ian Curtis (lyrics), Unknown Pleasures, performed by Joy Division",
          "text": "Oh, I've walked on water, run through fire / Can't seem to feel it anymore",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2022, Liam McIlvanney, The Heretic, page 29",
          "text": "Six years ago, McCormack was walking on water as the cop who cracked the Quaker case.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To perform godlike or superhuman feats."
      ],
      "id": "en-walk_on_water-en-verb-UYGoA~yF",
      "links": [
        [
          "perform",
          "perform"
        ],
        [
          "godlike",
          "godlike"
        ],
        [
          "superhuman",
          "superhuman"
        ],
        [
          "feat",
          "feat"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic, in hypothetical constructions) To perform godlike or superhuman feats."
      ],
      "raw_tags": [
        "in hypothetical constructions"
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    },
    {
      "glosses": [
        "Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see walk, water."
      ],
      "id": "en-walk_on_water-en-verb-epSABEbL",
      "links": [
        [
          "walk",
          "walk#English"
        ],
        [
          "water",
          "water#English"
        ]
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-walk on water.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/9/97/En-au-walk_on_water.ogg/En-au-walk_on_water.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/97/En-au-walk_on_water.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "walk on water"
}
{
  "categories": [
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English entries with topic categories using raw markup",
    "English lemmas",
    "English multiword terms",
    "English terms with audio links",
    "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
    "English verbs",
    "en:Christianity"
  ],
  "etymology_text": "From the miracle of Jesus walking on water, described in the Gospels.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "walks on water",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "walking on water",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "walked on water",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "walked on water",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "walk on water (third-person singular simple present walks on water, present participle walking on water, simple past and past participle walked on water)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English idioms",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English terms with usage examples"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "He may be rich and influential, but he can't walk on water.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "text": "After the day I had today, I feel like I could walk on water.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1979, “New Dawn Fades”, in Ian Curtis (lyrics), Unknown Pleasures, performed by Joy Division",
          "text": "Oh, I've walked on water, run through fire / Can't seem to feel it anymore",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2022, Liam McIlvanney, The Heretic, page 29",
          "text": "Six years ago, McCormack was walking on water as the cop who cracked the Quaker case.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To perform godlike or superhuman feats."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "perform",
          "perform"
        ],
        [
          "godlike",
          "godlike"
        ],
        [
          "superhuman",
          "superhuman"
        ],
        [
          "feat",
          "feat"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic, in hypothetical constructions) To perform godlike or superhuman feats."
      ],
      "raw_tags": [
        "in hypothetical constructions"
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    },
    {
      "glosses": [
        "Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see walk, water."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "walk",
          "walk#English"
        ],
        [
          "water",
          "water#English"
        ]
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-walk on water.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/9/97/En-au-walk_on_water.ogg/En-au-walk_on_water.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/97/En-au-walk_on_water.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "walk on water"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-03 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 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.