dead in the water
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“We’re almost dead in the water because our workforce is gone,” said Scott Brannock, president of Jacksonville-based Tidewater Homes and the Northeast Florida Builders Association.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 16, 2026
On Tuesday the residents' spokesperson Breandan Mac Cionnaith described the prospect of mediation as "dead in the water", having said Monday that residents would be open to a process involving an international mediator.
From Barron's ● Sep. 30, 2026
"We were written off in the Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse by-election with very similar arguments - you were dead in the water before you had begun according to the Scottish media," he said.
From BBC ● Sep. 7, 2025
For months, the plan appeared dead in the water because his party didn’t have the votes needed in Congress to make the necessary changes in the constitution.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 14, 2024
The British boat and the Husky Clipper, for a horrific moment, sat motionless at the line, dead in the water.
From "The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics" by Daniel James Brown
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
