1. Literally, dry and unaffected by water, typically flood waters. We get some pretty bad storms around here, but the levee has always left us high and dry, thank goodness.If we want to stay high and dry, we need to head for the hills, like, now with the way these floodwaters keep rising!Our basement always floods when it rains. You guys are lucky to stay high and dry!
2. In a situation in which one has little chance of escaping or improving. You really left me high and dry when you forgot to pick me up last night. I had no way of calling or getting home!The departure of several key employees has left the business high and dry.I know you needed my help with that project, and I didn't mean to leave you high and dry—I had to leave work early when my daughter got sick at school.
Fig. safe; unbothered by difficulties; unscathed. (As if someone or something were safe from a flood. See also leave someone high and dry.) While the riot was going on down on the streets, I was high and dry in my apartment.Liz came out of the argument high and dry.
Stranded, as in They walked out on the party, leaving me high and dry. This expression originally alluded to a ship that had run aground or was in dry dock. Its figurative use dates from the late 1800s.
1 (especially of ships left stranded by the sea as the tide ebbs) out of the water. 2 in a difficult position, especially without resources.
21996FrankMcCourtAngela's Ashes I hear he left you high and dry, eh? I don't know how a man in his right mind can go off and leave a wife and family to starve and shiver in a Limerick winter.
in a difficult situation without help or money: When the travel company went bankrupt, many holidaymakers were left high and dry abroad or waiting at the airport.
This expression refers to boats left on the beach after the level of the sea has fallen.
Stranded. Originally this expression alluded quite literally to a ship that had run aground or was in dry dock. By the late nineteenth century it had begun to be used figuratively. See also out on a limb. John Galsworthy still was referring to the nautical source in Castles in Spain (1927): “A true work of art remains beautiful and living, though an ebb tide of fashion may leave it for the moment high and dry.”
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