low-water mark

1. 1.

   an extreme state of adversity; the lowest point of anything

   Synonymsnadir

   Broaderadversity
2. 2.

   a line marking the lowest level reached

   Broaderwater line

Questions about low-water mark

What does low-water mark mean?

low-water mark means "an extreme state of adversity; the lowest point of anything". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

What is another word for low-water mark?

Close synonyms include nadir. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is low-water mark a common word?

low-water mark is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.