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Definition

To put too much water in something; overdilute.

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Origins

Originally drown the miller's thumb, meaning to go over the specified mark.

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In Context

  • "[…] I tell my Bowl Friends, that our ministers have spoilt the punch. Sometimes they give us too much spirit, as when they display a vigour beyond the law; and sometimes, as we say, they drown the Miller, and make sad insipid stuff of it; again they sting our throats with acid; but it is not once in a century that we have cause to complain of an excess of sugar."