high and dry
15
6.3
- idiom
- Informal
:
abandonado a su suerte
- When the project fell through, I felt completely high and dry without any support from my team.
- leave us high and dry
If you don't grab up what you can quickly, you will be left high and dry and you'll honestly slowly starve to death.
- If you don't grab up what you can quickly, you will be left high and dry and you'll honestly slowly starve to death.
- There's it's no hassle whatsoever, but it leaves transsexual people high and dry.
- But we, we've been at odds with pop Tarts lately because we have felt that they left us high and dry.
- And he was left high and dry only to hear the woman say to him, had you tried, it could have happened.
- And the, the, the, the, the inclination is to think he was just playing you, is to think that he just reeled you in with all this effort only to leave you high and dry.
Examples
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Clinton left the Rangers high and dry in Somalia after a request for additional troops and equipment was denied.
Blog text (10) -
You left me high and dry.
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And he was left high and dry only to hear the woman say to him, had you tried, it could have happened.
-
It's not like I left you high and dry.
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You know, they leave you high and dry.
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We were about to leave you high and dry.
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But you left me high and dry.
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I started consulting without a contract, and the company went belly up, leaving me high and dry.
Blog text (25) -
Instead, they comforted her when her academic advisor quit, leaving her high and dry.
Fiction book (1999) -
After Romania's communist government channeled and redirected the Danube in the 1960s, fishermen in Pietrele were left high and dry for the first time in millennia.
Academic text (2011)
Synonyms
8
8.2
Left without help at an important time
3
4.0
Unable to leave a place because no help or transport is available
2
7.4
A situation of very great trouble and urgent need with no easy way out
1
6.8
Leave people alone without help, often in danger, so events decide what happens to them
1
9.9
A very bad situation with no way to fix it
1
9.9
To be in a difficult situation with no way out
Antonyms
Surface Forms
Morphology
The literal words 'high' and 'dry' create a physical image (e.g., a boat left high and dry) that can cue the idea of being stranded, but the abstract meaning 'left without help or resources' requires a metaphorical mapping beyond the direct senses of the constituents. This connection is partly inferable from the imagery but not fully predictable for a B1 learner encountering the phrase for the first time, so it is only partially transparent.
Etymology
The idiom high and dry comes from old sailors who saw ships left high up on the shore and dry out of the water when the tide went out, so the ships were stuck. That's why it now means 'left without help' or 'stranded'.