flood tide

flood tide (plural flood tides)

1. The period between low tide and the next high tide of the sea as the water flows toward the shore
   • 1851 November 14, Herman Melville, “Chapter 16”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC:

     Going forward and glancing over the weather bow, I perceived that the ship swinging to her anchor with the flood-tide, was now obliquely pointing towards the open ocean.

   • 1953 May, “British Railways and the January Floods”, in Railway Magazine, page 303:

     The 120-ton double-track bridge-ramp of the Harwich-Zebrugge train ferry was seriously damaged when the ferry Essex was lifted on the flood tide to an abnormal height, but was fully restored on March 5.

2. (by extension) The highest point of something; a climax.
   • 1907 August, Robert W Chambers, “His Own People”, in The Younger Set, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC, page 6:

     It was flood-tide along Fifth Avenue; motor, brougham, and victoria swept by on the glittering current; pretty women glanced out from limousine and tonneau; young men of his own type, silk-hatted, frock-coated, the crooks of their walking sticks tucked up under their left arms, passed on the Park side.

   • 1954 November, Frank Hewitt, “The First Decade of British 4-6-0 Locomotives—1”, in Railway Magazine, page 747:

     After the introduction of the Highland Railway class, the progress of the 4-6-0 was tardy for some years.Then, when designers were increasingly turning to it as the answer to their growing motive power problems, production of 4-6-0s swelled into a flood tide.

• ebb tide