high water mark
n.— «Finally, most hedge funds have something called a high water mark. It requires hedge fund managers to make investors whole before they can start collecting their 20 percent of the profits—regardless of how long that takes. Hedge fund managers don’t get to start from scratch every Jan. 1 the way their mutual fund brethren do.» —“Running a Hedge Fund Is Harder Than It Looks on TV” by Andrew Ross SOrkin New York Times Aug. 19, 2008. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
If you alternate alcoholic beverages with glasses of water over the course of an evening, you’re said to be zebra striping. This bit of slang was inspired by how the animal’s alternating black-and-white markings are like the contrast between the...
The German word Zaunkönig means “wren,” but literally translates as “king of the fence.” This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Zaunkönig, King of the Fence” The German word zahn means a fence or a...