Careful Words

wet (n.)

wet (v.)

wet (adj.)

A drunkard clasp his teeth and not undo 'em,

To suffer wet damnation to run through 'em.

Cyril Tourneur (Circa 1600): The Revenger's Tragedy. Act iii. Sc. 1.

  She may guess what I should perform in the wet, if I do so much in the dry.

Miguel De Cervantes (1547-1616): Don Quixote. Part i. Book iii. Chap. xi.

A wet sheet and a flowing sea,

A wind that follows fast,

And fills the white and rustling sail,

And bends the gallant mast.

And bends the gallant mast, my boys,

While like the eagle free

Away the good ship flies, and leaves

Old England on the lee.

Allan Cunningham (1785-1842): A Wet Sheet and a Flowing Sea.

Night is the time to weep,

To wet with unseen tears

Those graves of memory where sleep

The joys of other years.

James Montgomery (1771-1854): The Issues of Life and Death.