Word.ws English Dictionary

still waters run deep

still waters run deep proverb: a person with a calm appearance has, or may have, considerable inner emotion, character, or intellect.

Proverb

still waters run deep

  1. A person with a calm appearance has, or may have, considerable inner emotion, character, or intellect.
    • I always knew she was an artful jade; 'still waters run deep;' but she shall be exposed, the mask shall be stripped from the hypocrite.1822, Catharine Maria Sedgwick, A New-England Tale
    • But still waters run deep; and no crisis had come in the years of her early maidenhood to demonstrate what lay hidden within her, like metal in a mine.1885, Thomas Hardy, A Mere Interlude

still waters run deep meaning in Indonesian and Thai

still waters run deep in Indonesian

a person's calm appearance may be misleading
air tenang menghanyutkan

still waters run deep in Thai

a person's calm appearance may be misleading
น้ำนิ่งไหลลึก náam-nîng-lǎi-lʉ́k

Examples of still waters run deep in a sentence

  • Baxter had never known of any goings on in that quarter, but, bless you, still waters run deep, and these girls were all alike, one as bad as the other.1903, Samuel Butler, chapter 58, in The Way of All Flesh:
  • Yet she harbors passions; it might be said of her that still waters run deep.2003 June 8, Alice Elliott Dark, “Book Review: Rainy Day Woman”, in New York Times, retrieved 09 Jul 2008:

Forms of still waters run deep

alternative formstill water runs deep

Origin of still waters run deep

Of Latin origin, but possibly popularized by William Shakespeare, c. 1590, in "Henry VI," part 2, act 3, scene 1: : Smooth runs the water where the brook is deep; : And in his simple show he harbours treason.

Questions about still waters run deep

What does still waters run deep mean?
Still waters run deep means a person with a calm appearance has, or may have, considerable inner emotion, character, or intellect.
What is still waters run deep in Indonesian?
Still waters run deep in Indonesian is air tenang menghanyutkan. See Still waters run deep meaning in Indonesian.
How do you use still waters run deep in a sentence?
Baxter had never known of any goings on in that quarter, but, bless you, still waters run deep, and these girls were all alike, one as bad as the other.
What part of speech is still waters run deep?
Still waters run deep is a proverb.

Words near still waters run deep in the dictionary

  1. still store
  2. still stores
  3. still water
  4. still water runs deep
  5. still waters
  6. still waters run deep
  7. still wine
  8. still wines
  9. still with us
  10. Still's disease
  11. Still's murmur

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: still waters run deep (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: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-still waters run deep.wav.

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