high and dry

Idioms  

1. Stranded, as in They walked out on the party, leaving me high and dry. This expression originally alluded to a ship that had run aground or was in dry dock. Its figurative use dates from the late 1800s.

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Example Sentences

And he does not want to leave his clients high and dry should he die unexpectedly.

From MarketWatch • Feb. 25, 2026

Ms Rowe said that her family had been "left high and dry".

From BBC • Nov. 17, 2024

But just now, the late spring weather forecast for temperatures and precipitation thereabouts looks hearteningly like the dramatic peninsula itself: high and dry.

From Los Angeles Times • May 3, 2024

The land is high and dry, the ground rocky and inhospitable — not like the rainy coastal Northwest, where trees grow thick and fast.

From New York Times • Apr. 4, 2024

I tell him everything worked just like he said it would, and the Mary Rose is high and dry, but now I’m stumped.

From "The Young Man and the Sea" by Rodman Philbrick