English

Alternative forms

• tall drink of water

Noun

long drink of water ‎(plural long drinks of water)

1. (US, Scotland, slang) A tall person.
   • 1915, Washington Post 1 Aug. (Magazine) 3/1:^[1]

     Other acts will include Klein, Abe and Nicholson, “the fat bellboy, the corpulent Scot and ‘the long drink of water,’” in a comedy of melody.

   • 1924 Times (London, England) “The Speaker Defied” (May 10) p. 12:^[5]

     Mr. Kirkwood [Scottish Labor party member] addressed his reproof to Lord Winterton, who, along with his colleagues, had protested against the defiance of the speaker’s ruling. “Ye are not treating with Indians, ye big long drink of water,” he shouted. Immediately the Speaker reproved the member for Dumbarton.

Usage notes

Connotations vary between uses and over time: may or may not suggest slender, may be associated with men or with women, may be derogatory, complimentary, or neutral.^[4][5] Early uses suggest mildly derogatory and humorous sense, meaning “tall and thin”, as in gangly or lanky. More recent American usage (2000s) often suggests a positive term, often gendered, as attractive men or attractive women.

References

1. 1 2 Benjamin Zimmer, May 9, 2005, "(long) drink of water" (1915)
2. ↑ “drink of water long drink of water” in Dictionary of the Scots Language, Scottish Language Dictionaries, Edinburgh", drink, lang: The life and recollections of Doctor Duguid of Kilwinning, John Service, 1887, p. 103: “Stair had grown up into a great lang drink, and would faukled, as Robin Cummell said, if he fell.”
3. ↑ George Saintsbury, A Last Scrap Book (1924), "long+drink+of+water" p. 243 shows that the English writer did not recognize the use by a Scottish speaker (1924 Times use in citation): We turn, my brethren, to the other incident, and the sole utterance of any note in it is the description by one member of another as "You great big long drink-of-water!" There may, of course, have been some esoteric meaning in this. Even exoterically, if the accuser intended to intimate the superiority of whisky to water or the necessity of a coalition between two things, both plentiful by Clyde-side, he could not be altogether condemned. But how flat it is, flat as is not even every drink of water! How destitute of the slightest laughter-provoking quality! How uninteresting! For in mere abuse there is nothing interesting; it is always as dull as the ditch-variety of the injured element to which the honourable gentleman was compared.
4. 1 2 What does it mean to call someone a 'drink of water'?, English Stack Exchange
5. 1 2 What's the etymology of "Tall Drink of Water"?, MetaFilter, August 14, 2006