watery

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English wateri,^[2][3] inherited from Old English wæterig,^[3][4][5][6] from wæter (“water”) and the adjective suffix -ig,^[7][8][5] the ancestor of -y.^[3][5] The OED compares Middle Dutch waterich, Dutch waterig, Middle Low German waterich, Old High German wazzirig and German wässrig, which are cognate with it or formed in the same way from the Germanic base of water.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Of or relating to water: the OED's first record is in Bald's Leechbook, of the early Old English period,^[4] and Bosworth–Toller quotes the same medical text for a discharge that is "windy, watery and bloody".^[6] Of soil, full of water or moist, it is found in Ælfric.^[4] The 1989 edition of the OED dates both this sense and "thin, like water in consistency" to about 1000.^[9]

Semantic evolution

In Middle English the word was used of rain and water vapour, and of lands with much rain;^[3][2] the MED also records it for colours with the lustre or paleness of water.^[2] Trevisa (before 1398) applied it to clouds ready to fall as rain and to stars and signs of the zodiac thought to bring rain.^[4] Of the eyes, "moist, full of tears", it dates from the mid-15th century.^[3][5] From the physical sense "thin, too fluid" came the figurative "vapid, insipid", used of speech, style or a person from Middle English on.^[5] Johnson (1755) listed "tasteless; insipid; vapid; spiritless" as its second sense, quoting the "gross, watery pumpion" of Shakespeare's Merry Wives of Windsor.^[10] The phrase watery grave, for the bottom of the sea as the resting place of the drowned, is recorded from 1595.^[4][5] In Scottish and northern English dialect, watery-pox was chickenpox and watery-like described dull weather threatening rain.^[11]

Timeline

• Old English – of or relating to water, in Bald's Leechbook; of soil, full of water, in Ælfric.^[4][6]
• c. 1000 – thin and fluid, like water.^[9][5]
• before 1382 – of plants and animals, living in or on water.^[4]
• before 1398 – of clouds, full of moisture and threatening rain; of a star or season, bringing rain.^[4]
• before 1400 – of a part of the body or a lesion, exuding watery fluid.^[4]
• c. 1407 – pale, resembling water in colour.^[9]
• mid-15th century – of the eyes, moist, tearful.^[3][5]
• 1567 – built in or beside water.^[4]
• 1595 – watery grave.^[4]
• 1600 – in poetry, of a rainbow (obsolete by 1854).^[4]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Full of, soaked with or consisting of water; wet or soggy: a watery field after the storm.^[12][13][7]
2. Containing too much water; diluted or thin: a watery stew.^[12][5]
3. Pale or weak, as if mixed with water: a watery afternoon sun.^[12][5]
4. Lacking strength or substance; insipid: a watery plot.^[12][13][5]
5. Discharging water or a watery fluid; of the eyes, tearful.^[12][13][5]
6. Of, relating to or living in water; aquatic (now rare).^[5][4]
7. watery grave: the sea or a river as the resting place of a drowned person.^[5][4]

Word family

• wateriness
• waterily
• unwatery

Related words

• water
• wet
• aqueous

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
7. ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
8. ^ Gove, Philip Babcock, ed. (1961), Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam
9. ^ a b c Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
11. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
12. ^ a b c d e The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
13. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins