oil and water
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
Things that do not mix or combine well
Literally: liquid mixture
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
We're like oil and vinegar, oil and water.
The fact is that — that we're oil and water.
British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)
Sources & notes
Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-31; pending editor spot-check.
Common questions
What does “oil and water” mean?
Things that do not mix or combine well Literally: liquid mixture
Is “oil and water” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.