Careful Words

water (n.)

water (v.)

water (adv.)

water (adj.)

Love in a hut, with water and a crust,

Is—Love, forgive us!—cinders, ashes, dust.

John Keats (1795-1821): Lamia. Part ii.

How does the water

Come down at Lodore?

Robert Southey (1774-1843): The Cataract of Lodore.

  As the hart panteth after the water-brooks.

Old Testament: Psalm xlii. 1.

Alas! our young affections run to waste,

Or water but the desert.

Lord Byron 1788-1824: Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Canto iv. Stanza 120.

Who then to frail mortality shall trust

But limns on water, or but writes in dust.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): The World.

The conscious water saw its God and blushed.

Richard Crashaw (Circa 1616-1650): Epigram.

  For water continually dropping will wear hard rocks hollow.

Plutarch (46(?)-120(?) a d): Of the Training of Children.

'T is a little thing

To give a cup of water; yet its draught

Of cool refreshment, drained by fevered lips,

May give a shock of pleasure to the frame

More exquisite than when nectarean juice

Renews the life of joy in happiest hours.

Thomas Noon Talfourd (1795-1854): Ion. Act i. Sc. 2.

All your better deeds

Shall be in water writ, but this in marble.

Beaumont And Fletcher: Philaster. Act v. Sc. 3.

  Where the streame runneth smoothest, the water is deepest.

John Lyly (Circa 1553-1601): Euphues and his England, page 287.

  Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach's sake.

New Testament: 1 Timothy v. 23.

Let not women's weapons, water-drops,

Stain my man's cheeks!

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Lear. Act ii. Sc. 4.

The earth hath bubbles as the water has,

And these are of them.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Macbeth. Act i. Sc. 3.

  Call things by their right names. . . . Glass of brandy and water! That is the current but not the appropriate name: ask for a glass of liquid fire and distilled damnation.

Robert Hall (1764-1831): Gregory's Life of Hall.

A man may well bring a horse to the water,

But he cannot make him drinke without he will.

John Heywood (Circa 1565): Proverbes. Part i. Chap. xi.

Seem'd washing his hands with invisible soap

In imperceptible water.

Thomas Hood (1798-1845): Miss Kilmansegg. Her Christening.

Not all the water in the rough rude sea

Can wash the balm off from an anointed king.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Richard II. Act iii. Sc. 2.

That which is now a horse, even with a thought

The rack dislimns, and makes it indistinct,

As water is in water.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Antony and Cleopatra. Act iv. Sc. 14.

These reasons made his mouth to water.

Samuel Butler (1600-1680): Hudibras. Part i. Canto iii. Line 379.

O Mirth and Innocence! O milk and water!

Ye happy mixtures of more happy days.

Lord Byron 1788-1824: Beppo. Stanza 80.

  The miller sees not all the water that goes by his mill.

Robert Burton (1576-1640): Anatomy of Melancholy. Part iii. Sect. 3, Memb. 4, Subsect. 1.

She is a woman, therefore may be woo'd;

She is a woman, therefore may be won;

She is Lavinia, therefore must be loved.

What, man! more water glideth by the mill

Than wots the miller of; and easy it is

Of a cut loaf to steal a shive.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Titus Andronicus. Act ii. Sc. 1.

Much water goeth by the mill

That the miller knoweth not of.

John Heywood (Circa 1565): Proverbes. Part ii. Chap. v.

Here lies one whose name was writ in water.

John Keats (1795-1821):

She is mine own,

And I as rich in having such a jewel

As twenty seas, if all their sand were pearl,

The water nectar, and the rocks pure gold.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): The Two Gentlemen of Verona. Act ii. Sc. 4.

  Here's that which is too weak to be a sinner,—honest water, which ne'er left man i' the mire.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): Timon of Athens. Act i. Sc. 2.

  Ships are but boards, sailors but men: there be land-rats and water-rats, water-thieves and land-thieves.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): The Merchant of Venice. Act i. Sc. 3.

Mynheer Vandunck, though he never was drunk,

Sipped brandy and water gayly.

George Colman, The Younger (1762-1836): Mynheer Vandunck.

Smooth runs the water where the brook is deep.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Henry VI. Part II. Act iii. Sc. 1.

  As water spilt on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again.

Old Testament: 2 Samuel xiv. 14.

  Ships are but boards, sailors but men: there be land-rats and water-rats, water-thieves and land-thieves.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): The Merchant of Venice. Act i. Sc. 3.

This business will never hold water.

Colley Cibber (1671-1757): She Wou'd and She Wou'd Not. Act iv.

  I always like to begin a journey on Sundays, because I shall have the prayers of the Church to preserve all that travel by land or by water.

Jonathan Swift (1667-1745): Polite Conversation. Dialogue ii.

  Unstable as water, thou shalt not excel.

Old Testament: Genesis xlix. 4.

Men's evil manners live in brass; their virtues

We write in water.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): King Henry VIII. Act iv. Sc. 2.

Water, water, everywhere,

Nor any drop to drink.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834): The Ancient Mariner. Part ii.

  He said that in his whole life he most repented of three things: one was that he had trusted a secret to a woman; another, that he went by water when he might have gone by land; the third, that he had remained one whole day without doing any business of moment.

Plutarch (46(?)-120(?) a d): Life of Marcus Cato.

  The stay and the staff, the whole stay of bread, and the whole stay of water.

Old Testament: Isaiah iii. 1.