the.com/high and dry
Where you're left when the tide takes everyone else and keeps your plans too.
means Stranded without resources or help, left in a difficult position while everyone and everything that might have rescued you moves on.
from A literal 19th-century sailing phrase: a ship was 'high and dry' when it was beached above the waterline, fully exposed and stuck on land rather than floating — too high up the shore for the tide to reach and refloat it. From there it drifted ashore into general use for anyone left stuck and unsupported once circumstances recede, like water leaving a hull behind.
- origin
- 19th century, literal term for stranded ships
- mechanism
- water recedes, boat stays, nobody consulted the boat
- modern use
- now means abandoned, usually by people not oceans
- feeling
- stranded, but somehow also judged for it