Word.ws English Dictionary

out of one's depth

out of one's depth adjective: in water so deep that one cannot stand and may be at risk of drowning.

Adjective

out of one's depth

  1. (literally) In water so deep that one cannot stand and may be at risk of drowning.
  2. (figuratively, idiomatic) In a situation which one is poorly prepared or unprepared to handle.
    • The team's first game was against the league champions; they were out of their depth and knew it.
    • She doesn’t know Joker, she’s out of her depth. I need to save her.2011 October 18, Batman: Arkham City, spoken by Batman (Kevin Conroy), Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, via Rocksteady Studios
    Synonyms:
    in over one's head, out of one's league

Synonyms of out of one's depth

Questions about out of one's depth

What does out of one's depth mean?
Out of one's depth means in water so deep that one cannot stand and may be at risk of drowning.
What part of speech is out of one's depth?
Out of one's depth is an adjective.

Words near out of one's depth in the dictionary

  1. out of luck
  2. out of nowhere
  3. out of office
  4. out of one's box
  5. out of one's cotton-picking mind
  6. out of one's depth
  7. out of one's element
  8. out of one's face
  9. out of one's fingers
  10. out of one's gourd
  11. out of one's hands

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: out of one's depth (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-out of one's depth.ogg.

Cite this entry: “out of one's depth.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/out_of_one%27s_depth. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.