high-water

adjective

Being or resembling highwaters, long pants with a noticeable gap between the hem and the top of the wearer's foot; hence, short.

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Meanings

adjectivehigh-water (comparative more high-water, superlative most high-water)

comparative more high-water · superlative most high-water

  1. Being or resembling highwaters, long pants with a noticeable gap between the hem and the top of the wearer's foot; hence, short.

    I took these hemmed-up pants with me to college, and by the end of the year they were all high-water jeans because at eighteen I was still growing.

    2006, Rigoberto González, Butterfly Boy: Memories of a Chicano Mariposa, page 195
    2 more examples

    Their hair almost bounced, their braces flashed in the fluorescent light, and they had my sisters' permission to make comments about my “high-water” trousers.

    1992, Darryl Pinckney, High Cotton: A Novel

    The day Pappy brought Billy Neely to live with us he didn't own anything but one pair of high-water pants: No shoes, no shirt, no toothbrush, no nothing except for one pair of high-water pants.

    2013, James S. Lowry, The Long Road Home and Other Short Stories from the Silences in the Gospel of Mark
Cite this entry
APA

high-water. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/high-water

MLA

“high-water.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/high-water. Accessed November 4, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “high-water,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/high-water.

Source: high-water on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.