Word.ws English Dictionary

holding water

holding water is the present participle and gerund 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 holding water

What is holding water the present participle and gerund of?
Holding water is the present participle and gerund of hold water.

Words near holding water in the dictionary

  1. holding true
  2. holding up
  3. holding up a mirror to
  4. holding up as
  5. holding up one's end
  6. holding water
  7. holding with
  8. holding with the hare and running with the hounds
  9. holdingly
  10. holdings
  11. holdless

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: holding 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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