waist-deep
adj1
Of water etc As deep as would reach to the waist (of a standing person).
- Near-synonym: waist-high
- When the river broke through defenses near the city of Wuhan in Hopeh^([sic – meaning Hupeh]) Province, Peking Radio reported that 10,000 peasants with straw mats on their backs stood waist-deep in the water to form a human dike until their places could be filled with sandbags.1982, Champ Clark, “The Yangtze: China's Second Killer River”, in Flood (Planet Earth), Alexandria, VA: Time-Life Books, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 49, column 2:
- Derived terms
- waist-deep in the Big Muddy