water under the bridge
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
past issues that are no longer relevant
Literally: water that has flowed under a bridge
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
' Water under the bridge, ' he mumbled.
A Tory MP and a member of the Government Whips ' Office, he, too, had fallen under the spell of the late Emma Kerr, but that was water under another bridge.
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 “water under the bridge” mean?
past issues that are no longer relevant Literally: water that has flowed under a bridge
Is “water under the bridge” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.