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Synonyms

touch bottom

Idioms  

  1. Reach the lowest point, as in During the recession the economists kept saying that we hadn't touched bottom yet. This metaphor for reaching the ground under a body of water has been used since the mid-1800s.

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

“Slowly but steadily, the male gently pushed the pup to shore until it could touch bottom,” the study said.

From Seattle Times

You have to touch bottom before you can kind of start to come back up again.

From Salon

“There you go,” he said, when I was able to touch bottom again.

From The New Yorker

But an unseen bomb crater meant the heavily-laden infantrymen couldn’t touch bottom.

From Washington Times

The anchor’s depth is nothing compared to the depth of the trench beneath us, but the mystery of an anchor is that it never needs to touch bottom, or even come close, to keep the largest of ships in place.

From Literature

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.