watering hole
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
A place where people regularly gather to socialize
Literally: a hole for watering animals
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
In the adjacent Golf Bar golfers will soon be able to find a welcoming watering hole looking over the green.
They all take place in a huge modernist building on the sea front of the ultimate business watering hole, Cannes.
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 “watering hole” mean?
A place where people regularly gather to socialize Literally: a hole for watering animals
Is “watering hole” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.