long drink of water
Syllables: long drink of wa·terUK/lɒŋ ˈdɹɪŋk əv ˈwɔːtə/US/lɔŋ ˈdɹɪŋk əv ˈwɔtɚ/
long drink of water noun: a tall person.
Noun
long drink of water (plural long drinks of water)
- A tall person.
- Stair had grown up into a great lang drink, and would faukled, as Robin Cummell said, if he fell.[1887, John Service, chapter XVI, in The Life and Recollections of Doctor Duguid of Kilwinning. Written by Himself, and Now First Printed from the Recovered Manuscript, Edinburgh: Young J. Pentland...
- Other acts will include Klein, Abe and Nicholson, “the fat bellboy, the corpulent Scot and ‘the long drink of water,’” in a comedy of melody.1915 August 1, “Photoplays, Vaudeville and outdoor amusements”, in The Washington Post, page 3, column 1
Forms of long drink of water
| plural | long drinks of water |
|---|---|
| alternative form | tall drink of water |
Origin of long drink of water
The term originated in the United States, and was presumably used in vaudeville performances. It was derived from earlier Scots lang drink.
Questions about long drink of water
- What does long drink of water mean?
- Long drink of water means a tall person.
- What part of speech is long drink of water?
- Long drink of water is a noun.
- How do you pronounce long drink of water?
- Long drink of water is pronounced /lɒŋ ˈdɹɪŋk əv ˈwɔːtə/ (UK).
- What is the plural of long drink of water?
- The plural of long drink of water is long drinks of water.
Words near long drink of water in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: long drink of 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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-long drink of water.ogg.
Cite this entry: “long drink of water.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/long_drink_of_water. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.