to hold one's water
1
9.7
- idiom
- Informal
:
aguantar
- In the middle of the long road trip, they had to hold their water until the next rest stop.
Examples
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Hold your water.
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You better change your pants before people think you can't hold your water.
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- All right, hold your water.
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Just hold your water, babe.
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Don't tell me to hold my water.
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Your boy can't hold his water?
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He can't hold his water.
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Ah, hold your water.
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Hold your water, oggie.
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After drinking all that water, he decided to hold his water until the meeting was over.
Antonyms
Surface Forms
Morphology
The verb 'hold' (restrain) plus a possessive suggests stopping a bodily function, and 'water' can be used euphemistically for urine, so a learner could partly infer the meaning. However, 'water' = 'urine' is not an obvious core sense for many B1 learners and the phrase may be confused with the unrelated idiom 'hold water' (be valid), so the meaning is not fully predictable without exposure.
Etymology
The phrase hold one's water comes from the picture of trying to hold water inside your body so it does not leave. So, it means 'not to pee'.