Word.ws English Dictionary

hold water

hold water verb: to withstand scrutiny or criticism; to be valid.

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
    • 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.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

hold water meaning in Bengali, Malayalam and Kannada

hold water in Bengali

বৈধ হওয়া

hold water in Malayalam

water, moisten, sprinkle
വിശ്വസിക്കത്തക്കതാണെന്നു തോന്നുക, യുക്തിക്കു നിരക്കുന്നതായിരിക്കുക, ചെലവാകുക, വിലപ്പോവുക, നയ്ക്കുക, വെള്ളം ഒഴിക്കുക

hold water in Kannada

ನೀರ್ವಿಡಿ, ಸತ್ಯವಾಗು, ಸ್ಥಿರವಾಗು, ರುಜುವಾಗು, ಭದ್ರವಾಗಿರು, ಒಡಕಿಲ್ಲದಿರು

Forms of hold water

third-person singular presentholds water
present participleholding water
past participleheld water
pastheld water

Origin of hold water

Possibly from Jeremiah 2:13.

Questions about hold water

What does hold water mean?
Hold water means to withstand scrutiny or criticism; to be valid.
What is hold water in Bengali?
Hold water in Bengali is বৈধ হওয়া. See Hold water meaning in Bengali.
What part of speech is hold water?
Hold water is a verb.
What is the past tense of hold water?
The past tense of hold water is held water.

Words near hold water in the dictionary

  1. hold up
  2. hold up a mirror to
  3. hold up as
  4. hold up one's end
  5. hold up to
  6. hold water
  7. hold with
  8. hold with the hare and run with the hounds
  9. hold yew hard
  10. hold'em
  11. hold'st

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: hold water (page history and authors); hold water (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); hold water (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); hold water (Kannada Wiktionary) (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-hold water.ogg.

Cite this entry: “hold water.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/hold_water. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.