push water uphill
push water uphill verb: to try to achieve a goal despite huge resistance or nearly futile awkwardness, the task being an uphill battle.
Verb
push water uphill (third-person singular simple present pushes water uphill, present participle pushing water uphill, simple past and past participle pushed water uphill)
- To try to achieve a goal despite huge resistance or nearly futile awkwardness, the task being an uphill battle.
- A Salesman Unaided by the House is Pushing Water Uphill.1917, Cycle and Automobile Trade Journal - Volume 21, Chilton Company, page 161
- Without that commitment you will be pushing water uphill the whole time and will lose your own, necessary motivation.2012, Michael Roe, Marketing Professional Services, Routledge, →ISBN, page 9
Forms of push water uphill
| third-person singular present | pushes water uphill |
|---|---|
| present participle | pushing water uphill |
| past participle | pushed water uphill |
| past | pushed water uphill |
| alternative form | push water uphill with a rake |
| alternative form | push water uphill with a fork |
Questions about push water uphill
- What does push water uphill mean?
- Push water uphill means to try to achieve a goal despite huge resistance or nearly futile awkwardness, the task being an uphill battle.
- What part of speech is push water uphill?
- Push water uphill is a verb.
- What is the past tense of push water uphill?
- The past tense of push water uphill is pushed water uphill.
Words near push water uphill in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: push water uphill (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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