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drown the miller. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word
drown the miller, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say
drown the miller in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word
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English
Etymology
Originally drown the miller's thumb, meaning to go over the specified mark.
Verb
drown the miller (third-person singular simple present drowns the miller, present participle drowning the miller, simple past and past participle drowned the miller)
- (obsolete, idiomatic, slang) To put too much water in something; overdilute.
1821, The Economist, page 241:[…] 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.
References
- John Camden Hotten (1873) The Slang Dictionary