Word.ws English Dictionary

held water

held water is the simple past and past participle of hold water.

Meaning of hold water

Verb

hold water (third-person singular simple present holds water, present participle holding water, simple past and past participle held water)

  1. (idiomatic) To withstand scrutiny or criticism; to be valid.
    • "Young man," he said, "upon this point I can only say that your story is grossly improbable. It won't hold water."1888, Horatio Alger, chapter 35, in The Errand Boy

Questions about held water

What is held water the simple past and past participle of?
Held water is the simple past and past participle of hold water.

Words near held water in the dictionary

  1. held true
  2. held up
  3. held up a mirror to
  4. held up as
  5. held up one's end
  6. held water
  7. held with
  8. held with the hare and ran with the hounds
  9. held with the hare and run with the hounds
  10. helda bean
  11. helda beans

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: held water (page history and authors); hold 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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