knee-deep

See also: kneedeep

English

Etymology

From Middle English kne-depe; equivalent to knee +‎ deep.

Adjective

knee-deep (not comparable)

1. Reaching up to the knees.
   • 1831, Letitia Elizabeth Landon, Romance and Reality, volume 3, page 277:

     High above stood the ash-tree, its boughs covered with the toy-like bunches called "locks and keys;" and beyond spread the meadows, knee-deep with the verdant grass.

2. Submerged to the knees.
   • 1898, H.G. Wells, The War of the Worlds, London: William Heinemann, page 241:

     This gave me a hint, and I went knee-deep, and sometimes neck-deep, in the Red Weed. The density of the weed gave me a reassuring sense of hiding.

3. (figuratively, by extension) Deeply involved in something, or preoccupied with something.

Derived terms

• knee-deep in the Big Muddy

Translations

reaching up to the knees

• Cebuano: tagatuhod
• Georgian: მუხლის სიმაღლე (muxlis simaɣle)
• German: knietief (de)

• Russian: по коле́но (po koléno)

deeply involved

• Italian: fino al collo