treading water

1. 1.

   a stroke that keeps the head above water by thrashing the legs and arms

   Broaderswimming stroke

   Partsthrash

Questions about treading water

What does treading water mean?

treading water means "a stroke that keeps the head above water by thrashing the legs and arms".

Is treading water a common word?

treading water 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.