watery

English

Alternative forms

• waterish (rare)

Etymology

From water +‎ -y.

Adjective

watery (comparative waterier, superlative wateriest)

1. Wet, soggy or soaked with water.
   • 1960, P. G. Wodehouse, Jeeves in the Offing, chapter XVII:

     “Apparently that dog of hers joined you in the water.” “Yes, that's right, he took his dip with the rest of us. But what's that got to do with it?” “Wilbert Cream dived in and saved him.” “He could have got ashore perfectly well under his own steam. In fact, he was already on his way, doing what looked like an Australian crawl.” “That wouldn't occur to a pinhead like Phyllis. To her Wilbert Cream is the man who rescued her dachshund from a watery grave. So she's going to marry him.”

   • 2013 January 1, Nancy Langston, “The Fraught History of a Watery World”, American Scientist, volume 101, number 1, page 59: 

     European adventurers found themselves within a watery world, a tapestry of streams, channels, wetlands, lakes and lush riparian meadows enriched by floodwaters from the Mississippi River.

2. Diluted or having too much water.
3. (of light) Thin and pale therefore suggestive of water.
4. Weak and insipid.
   • 2012 August 21, Jason Heller, “The Darkness: Hot Cakes (Music Review)”, The Onion AV Club:

     When the album succeeds, such as on the swaggering, Queen-esque “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us,” it does so on The Darkness’ own terms—that is, as a random ’80s-cliché generator. But with so many tired, lazy callbacks to its own threadbare catalog (including “Love Is Not The Answer,” a watery echo of the epic “I Believe In A Thing Called Love” from 2003’s Permission To Land), Hot Cakes marks the point where The Darkness has stopped cannibalizing the golden age of stadium rock and simply started cannibalizing itself. And, despite Hawkins’ inveterate crotch-grabbing, there was never that much meat there to begin with.

5. Discharging water or similar substance as a result of disease etc.
6. Tearful.

Translations

Translations

• Bashkir: шыйыҡ (šïyïq) (1)
• Dutch: waterig (nl)
• French: aqueux (fr)
• German: wässrig (2,4,5,6)
• Italian: acquoso (1,2,3), acqueo (1), bagnato (1), inzuppato
• Japanese: 水っぽい (mizuppoi)
• Latvian: ūdeņains

• Malay: berair
• Manx: ushtagh
• Mopan Maya: ja'
• Portuguese: aquoso (pt)
• Romanian: apătos (ro), apos (ro)
• Swedish: våt (sv), vattnig (sv), blöt (sv), sur (sv)

Anagrams

• tawery