quarter water

noun

A combination of water, food coloring, and sugar sold as a drink in small plastic bottles for 25 cents.

Meanings

nounquarter water (plural quarter waters)

plural quarter waters

  1. USA combination of water, food coloring, and sugar sold as a drink in small plastic bottles for 25 cents.

    Well, there's water, and then there's quarter-waters. Ghetto Gatorade.

    2011, Patrice Evans, Negropedia, →ISBN
    4 more examples

    A bell rings and Pavlov's law is confirmed every time; the ice cream truck comes up the street and kids start flying from their houses; and we get in line to make our selection of pop sickles, quarter waters, push up pops, and rockets.

    2008, Ellington Rudi Robinson, Underneath the Music, →ISBN, page 3

    When I was a kid, quarter water was the drink of choice because it only cost a quarter.

    2011, Maurice Patterson, Inner-city Diet, →ISBN, page 30

    I remember those times. The corner bodega shops with the quarter waters and yellow lemon drops and the now and later, Do you remember then?

    2013, Yanatha Desouvre, Walk Through This Journey: Volume One, →ISBN

    A city block, chock full of empty heroin bags, used condoms, dirty diapers and expired bus passes. Sewer grates, straining under the weight of quarter water bottles and wrappers from cheap snacks and cakes.

    2014, Miss Sixx, 15th & East Capitol, →ISBN, page 69

Origin

From the cost (a quarter) and the main ingredient (water).

Full word history & related roots →
Cite this entry
APA

quarter water. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/quarter%20water

MLA

“quarter water.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/quarter%20water. Accessed November 5, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “quarter water,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/quarter%20water.

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