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court holy water

court holy water noun: pleasant but empty words, insincere promises or flattery.

Noun

court holy water (uncountable)

  1. (obsolete) Pleasant but empty words, insincere promises or flattery.
    • The King & his Nobles thinke they may ſleepe in quiet,
      Now they haue giuen vs a little holy water at the Court,
      But thers no ſuch matter, we be no ſuch fooles,
      To be bobd out with words and after come to hanging: […]1593, anonymous author, The Life and Death of Iacke Straw […], →OCLC, Act III
    • O Nunkle, Court holy‐water in a dry houſe, is better then this Rain‐water out o’doore. Good Nunkle, in, aske thy Daughters bleſſing, heere’s a night pitties neither Wiſemen, nor Fooles.c. 1603–1606, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of King Lear”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount...

Synonyms of court holy water

Questions about court holy water

What does court holy water mean?
Court holy water means pleasant but empty words, insincere promises or flattery.
What part of speech is court holy water?
Court holy water is a noun.

Words near court holy water in the dictionary

  1. court fees
  2. court guide
  3. court guides
  4. court hand
  5. court holy bread
  6. court holy water
  7. court in banc
  8. court in bank
  9. court jester
  10. court jesters
  11. court ladies

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: court holy water (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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