low-water mark


Also found in: Thesaurus, Acronyms, Idioms.
Related to low-water mark: ebbed

low-water mark

n
1. (Physical Geography) the level reached by seawater at low tide or by other stretches of water at their lowest level
2. the lowest point or level; nadir
Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014
ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:
Noun1.low-water mark - an extreme state of adversity; the lowest point of anything
adversity, hard knocks, hardship - a state of misfortune or affliction; "debt-ridden farmers struggling with adversity"; "a life of hardship"
2.low-water mark - a line marking the lowest level reached
watermark, water line - a line marking the level reached by a body of water
Based on WordNet 3.0, Farlex clipart collection. © 2003-2012 Princeton University, Farlex Inc.
References in classic literature ?
"Seven miles to the north of Venice the banks of sand which nearer the city rise little above low-water mark attain by degrees a higher level, and knit themselves at last into fields of salt morass, raised here and there into shapeless mounds, and intercepted by narrow creeks of sea."
In moisture, however, it is otherwise; from December to May is the period of the rains, and during this time the river slowly rises until it attains a height of nearly forty feet above its low-water mark. It floods the banks, extends in great lagoons over a monstrous waste of country, and forms a huge district, called locally the Gapo, which is for the most part too marshy for foot-travel and too shallow for boating.
This plant grows on every rock from low-water mark to a great depth, both on the outer coast and within the channels.
No other company was in the house than the landlord, his wife, and a grizzled male creature, the "Jack" of the little causeway, who was as slimy and smeary as if he had been low-water mark too.
Crupp, then sleeping, I suppose, in a distant chamber, situated at about the level of low-water mark, soothed in her slumbers by the ticking of an incorrigible clock, to which she always referred me when we had any little difference on the score of punctuality, and which was never less than three-quarters of an hour too slow, and had always been put right in the morning by the best authorities.
The majority explained that R v Keyn ('Keyn') (18) 'established that, absent statutory authority, a criminal court cannot punish as criminal, conduct which happens beyond the low-water mark on vessels flying the flag of a foreign state.' (19) The majority also explained that Mocambique, rather than having broader reach, merely 'established that the civil courts will not entertain (at least some) actions in respect of immovables in a foreign country or "a dispute involving the title to foreign land".' (20)
However, whether it is the low-water mark of the current generation is another matter.
I won't go into all the rotten things that happened that year but, for me, the low-water mark of the year came on April 3.
The request would continue the relatively steady upward trend in DOD base budgets since FY1998, which was the low-water mark of the post-Cold War retrenchment in defense funding (Figure 1).
We recommend freezing the state's annual UO commitment at today's low-water mark of about $60 million.
Alaska argued that the general and mandatory measurement rule contained in the first sentence of 7(3), "[F]or the purpose of measurement, the area of an indentation is that lying between the low-water mark around the shore of an indentation and a line joining the low-water marks of its natural entrance points," applied equally to both sentences of 7(2), whether the indentation in question is a single-mouthed or a multi-mouthed bay.
THE RECENT BC ELECTION marks a low-water mark, of sorts, for left-wing electoralism in Canada.