hold water

English

Etymology

Possibly from Jeremiah 2:13.

Pronunciation

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

Verb

hold water (third-person singular simple present holds water, present participle holding water, simple past and past participle held water)

1. (idiomatic) To withstand scrutiny or criticism; to be valid.
   • 1888, Horatio Alger, chapter 35, in The Errand Boy:

     "Young man," he said, "upon this point I can only say that your story is grossly improbable. It won't hold water."

   • 2017 August 13, Brandon Nowalk, “Oldtown offers one last game-changing secret as Game Of Thrones goes behind enemy lines (newbies)”, in The Onion AV Club‎^[1]:

     At the parlay, Tyrion also tries to claim Tywin’s murder was self-defense, which holds some water, and despite Jaime’s anger, I suspect he can see it from that side.

   • 2025 December 9, David E. Sanger, quoting Jake Sullivan, “Trump’s Nvidia Chip Deal Reverses Decades of Technology Restrictions”, in The New York Times‎^[2], New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC:

     So the argument that we can keep them ‘addicted’ holds no water. They want American chips right now for one simple reason: They are behind in the A.I. race and this will help them catch up while they build their own chip capabilities.

     (Can we archive this URL?)

Translations

withstand scrutiny

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 站得住 (zh) (zhàndezhù), 站得住腳 / 站得住脚 (zh) (zhàndezhù jiǎo), 成立 (zh) (chénglì)

• Danish: holde vand (da)
• Dutch: hout snijden, steek houden
• Finnish: pitää vettä, kestää tarkastelua, olla vedenpitävä
• French: tenir la route (fr)
• Hebrew: החזיק מים
• Hungarian: helytálló (hu), tartható (hu), megáll (hu), helyes (hu), hiteles (hu), megállja a helyét (hu)
• Italian: reggere un ipotesi
• Polish: trzymać się kupy (pl)
• Russian: выде́рживать критику (vydérživatʹ kritiku)
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: држати воду

  Latin: držati vodu

See also

• hold up
• hold one's water
• watertight

Anagrams

• hotelward