Home › Glossary › Letter W

Watery imagery

Imagery
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

Imagery evoking the qualities and symbolism of water and fluidity

Detailed Definition
Watery imagery overlaps with water imagery but specifically emphasizes qualities of diffusion, blurriness, or liquidity—such as mist, tears, or melting forms—to evoke emotional vulnerability, uncertainty, or dreamlike states; it often softens hard edges in both visual description and thematic tone.
Example
Example in poetry:
“The sea is a hungry dog” (James Reeves); “My love is like a red, red rose / That’s newly sprung in June” (Burns, with dew as watery extension); “Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean” (Tennyson); “The fog comes / on little cat feet” (Sandburg, implying mist as liquid presence)
Additional Notes
Watery imagery: A general term for the use of liquid, fluid, or water-related elements and metaphors to enrich a poem, conveying themes of purification, emotional volatility, or unconscious thought.
Also Known As
Watery images Aquatic pictures Liquid imagery Aqueous imagery
Skip to main content