drown the miller

present singular third person drowns the miller · participle present drowning the miller · participle past drowned the miller · past drowned the miller

1. idiomaticobsoleteslangTo put too much water in something; overdilute.

   1 more example

   […] I tell my Bowl Friends, that our ministers have spoilt the punch. Sometimes they give us too much spirit, as when they display a vigour beyond the law; and sometimes, as we say, they drown the Miller, and make sad insipid stuff of it; again they sting our throats with acid; but it is not once in a century that we have cause to complain of an excess of sugar.

   1821, The Economist, page 241