oil and water
Famously incompatible pair
Oil and water describes two things that don't mix or combine well.
The phrase comes from the physical fact that oil floats on water rather than dissolving into it.
It typically characterizes incompatible people, ideas, or elements: Those two are oil and water—they can't be in the same room without arguing.
His management style and creative freedom are oil and water.
- immiscibleCannot be blended
- hydrophobicRepels aqueous substances
- emulsificationDispersing one liquid in another
- polar oppositesMaximally opposed counterparts
- poles apartUtterly different in position
odd couple · cat and dog · night and day · apples and oranges · irreconcilable · surfactant · black and white · match made in hell · conflict · discord · dissimilar · contrast · friction · opposition · incompatibility · mayonnaise · divergence · puddle
- science experimentsvolcano model, elephant toothpaste, color change, slime making, baking soda volcano
- incompatibilitychalk and cheese, apples and oranges, mismatch, clash, mismatched
- hydrostatics for kidsbuoyancy, floating, sinking, displacement, density
- mismatchesmismatch, wrong fit, misfit, incompatibility, wrong size
- oppositesopposite, opposites, antonym, antonyms, inverse
- photographycamera, photo, flash, lens, shooting
oil and waterpeas in a pod
Extremely similar things
two peas in a pod · hand in glove · milk and honey · bread and butter · birds of a feather
oil and waterinseparable
Unable to be divided
joined at the hip · one and the same · blended · integrated · unified
oil and watermiscible
Able to blend homogeneously
soluble · blended · emulsified · integrated · unified
water, oily, oiled, oils, oiling, petroleum, oiliness, oilcloth, oilcan