| Idiom | Meaning | Example |
| water-cooler talk |
office news, gossip
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I believe water-cooler talk - unless it's about me.
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| water down |
add water to make it weaker, dilute
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The cherry drink is too strong. It should be watered down.
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| water under the bridge |
the past, history
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That failure is water under the bridge. Let's not live in the past.
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| watering hole |
bar, pub, licensed premises
|
The St. Louis Hotel is Ralph's favorite watering hole.
|
| watershed mark |
(See mark a watershed)
|
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| wax eloquent |
speak beautifully, make a speech using nice words
|
When we talk about art, Uncle Jonas begins to wax eloquent.
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| wax poetic |
become poetic, begin to recite poems
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Whenever you read the Psalms, Andy begins to wax poetic.
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| Wax is also an intransitive verb. In one sense it means to increase, as in the moon waxes full this evening, and in another sense to pass into a mood or state. In the latter sense we can understand the phrase wax poetic (or eloquent, lyrical, philosophical or sarcastic) and this raises doubt about its status as an idiom, i.e., it can be taken literally.
The Canadian Oxford Dictionary suggests that wax has a Germanic origin: wachsen (to grow). The interesting thing about this relationship is that wachsen never has an attribute, i.e. neither wax poetic nor grow old translate.
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| way cool |
very nice, very cool
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His voice is way cool, eh. I love listening to him.
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| way out (away out) |
not close to the answer, wrong by a large amount
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Your guess was way out. My age is 49, not 41.
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| way out of line (away out of line) |
very inappropriate, not acceptable
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When the teacher hit you, he was way out of line.
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