Watery means thin and weak, as if diluted. Watery soup, a watery smile, watery eyes.
Of food it is a complaint: watery soup has no body. Of eyes it means running, from cold or emotion. Of light or colour it means pale and weak — watery sunshine, a watery blue — which is one of the more useful uses. Of a smile it means faint and unconvincing. Note watery grave, which is a fixed and rather grand phrase for drowning.
1adjectivetasteThin and weak, as if diluted.
“The hospital coffee was weak and watery.”
2adjectivepalePale and weak, of light or colour.
“The winter sky was a watery blue.”
watery is a quality of thinness.
Old English waeterig is water plus -y. Water goes back to a Proto-Indo-European root shared with Russian voda and, at a distance, with whisky through the Gaelic for water of life.
Proto-West Germanic
*watarīg
Old English
wæteriġ — watery
Middle English
watery
English, today
watery
From Middle English watery, wattry, from Old English wæteriġ (“watery”), from Proto-West Germanic watarīg. Equivalent to water + -y.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA