The high and dry, subs. phr. (clerical).—The High Church or Anglo-Catholic party in the Establishment, as opposed to the low and slow (q.v.), or Evangelical section. Cf., Broad and Shallow.
1854. Conybeare, Church Parties, 74. Its adherents [of the High Church] are fallen from their high estate, and are contemptuously denominated the high and dry, just as the parallel development of the Low Church is nicknamed ‘low and slow.’
1857. Anthony Trollope, Barchester Towers, ch. liii. Who belongs to the high and dry church, the High Church as it was some fifty years since, before tracts were written and young clergymen took upon themselves the highly meritorious duty of cleaning churches?
1886. Graphic, 10 Apr., 399. In the Church have we not the three schools of High and Dry, Low and Slow, and Broad and Shallow?
High and dry, adv. phr. (colloquial).—Stranded; abandoned; irrecoverable.
1889. Pall Mall Gaz., 18 Oct., 6, 1. It seems to me that Mr. Chamberlain must really look out or he will find himself, as the result of that insidious ‘mellowing process’ to which Mr. Matthews has testified, landed high and dry in a Toryism compared to which Sir Walter Barttelot will show in Radical colours.
High and mighty, adv. phr. (colloquial).—Arrogant; imperious; proud; ‘on the high horse,’ or the ‘high ropes’ (q.v.); full of side (q.v.). [[309]]
1891. N. Gould, Double Event, p. 121. None of your high and mighty games with me.
1892. Henley and Stevenson, Deacon Brodie, i., 2. Ye need na be sae high and mighty onyway.
1892. Hume Nisbet, Bushranger’s Sweetheart, p. 49. ‘Mighty high some people are, ain’t they?’ the man observed loudly, straightening himself, and ordering a nobbler for himself.