LOW-WATER MARK

Pronunciation (US):

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does low-water mark mean? 

• LOW-WATER MARK (noun)
  The noun LOW-WATER MARK has 2 senses:

1. an extreme state of adversity; the lowest point of anything

2. a line marking the lowest level reached

  Familiarity information: LOW-WATER MARK used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• LOW-WATER MARK (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

An extreme state of adversity; the lowest point of anything

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Synonyms:

low-water mark; nadir

Hypernyms ("low-water mark" is a kind of...):

adversity; hard knocks; hardship (a state of misfortune or affliction)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A line marking the lowest level reached

Classified under:

Nouns denoting spatial position

Hypernyms ("low-water mark" is a kind of...):

water line; watermark (a line marking the level reached by a body of water)

 Context examples 

In moisture, however, it is otherwise; from December to May is the period of the rains, and during this time the river slowly rises until it attains a height of nearly forty feet above its low-water mark.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

His repudiation of this offer was almost shrill enough, in the excess of its surprise and humility, to have penetrated to the ears of Mrs. Crupp, then sleeping, I suppose, in a distant chamber, situated at about the level of low-water mark, soothed in her slumbers by the ticking of an incorrigible clock, to which she always referred me when we had any little difference on the score of punctuality, and which was never less than three-quarters of an hour too slow, and had always been put right in the morning by the best authorities.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)