tread water—
1. keep one’s head above water by remaining upright and pumping the legs:
- Two common ways of treading water are kicking extended legs back and forth and also kicking in an alternating manner, one leg at a time.
2. expend some effort but not make much progress:
- I realized that I was just treading water there in New Jersey—this isn’t really what we want to be doing.
walk on water—do wonders; perform an impossible:
- Just look at the job ads for executives in today’s newspapers—they almost expect you to walk on water!