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Persephone Posted 21 years ago
Vocabulary

High and Dry

Hiya,

what does "High and Dry" mean?

Thanks a lot!

Persephone
  

Top answer

The one expression I know usually goes 'to leave someone high and dry'. It means to leave someone stranded, in a difficult situation that they will have trouble escaping... I think 'high and dry' is an idiom that originally applied to ships.

— Waïti

  • The one expression I know usually goes 'to leave someone high and dry'.
  • It means to leave someone stranded, in a difficult situation that they will have trouble escaping...
  • I think 'high and dry' is an idiom that originally applied to ships.
  • Having a ship 'high and dry' probably meant the ship was under significant repair that required to take it out of water in a dry place.
  • Or something around those lines...
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4 Answers
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The one expression I know usually goes 'to leave someone high and dry'.
It means to leave someone stranded, in a difficult situation that they will have trouble escaping...
I think 'high and dry' is an idiom that originally applied to ships. Having a ship 'high and dry' probably meant the ship was under significant repair that required to take it out of water in a dry place. Or something a
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Waiti,

thank you for the posting!It helped a lot.

Thank you again ,your describtion was very,very helpful.

Greetings,

Peresephone
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Waiti,

Thanks a lot for your help ! I was wondering what "High and Dry" meant, and now I see cleary.Again, thank you very, very much.

Greetings,

Peresephone
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No problem, Persephone, my pleasure...
The slightly different interpretation I got in the meantime has to do with a boat drift ashore as the result of some natural event like a hurricane, and therefore lying uphill from sea level..
So it's still about boats, but not taken out from water for repair.
I think this second version makes more sense.
Waïti.
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