chilly
/ˈtʃɪli
/adjective (chillier, chilliest)
1Uncomfortably or unpleasantly cold: a chilly February evening...
- Sultry summer evenings gave way to chilly autumn and cold winter nights.
- I have an immersion heater so we'll have hot water, but the radiators are stone cold and it's chilly this evening.
- A big, blazing fire in a massive, heat retaining rock fireplace will be just the thing for chilly evenings - or cold winter days.
Synonyms
cold, cool, crisp, fresh, brisk, bleak, wintry, snowy, frosty, icy, ice-cold, icy-cold, glacial, polar, arctic, raw, sharp, bitter, bitterly cold, biting, piercing, penetrating, freezing, frigid
informal nippy
British informal parky
literary chill
rare gelid, brumal
1.1(Of a person) feeling cold: I felt a bit chilly...
- Mysti did her powerful leap from the ground and immediately I was chilly from the cool night air as the rushing wind passed me.
- When you hear a little crake noise, then you shall know that I am chilly and you shall make more fire.
- I was chilly so I slid into the sweater I had been using as a blanket.
Synonyms
cold, frozen, frozen stiff, frozen to the marrow/core/bone, freezing, freezing cold, bitterly cold, shivery, numb, numbed, chilled
1.2Unfriendly: he got a chilly reception from Republican activists...
- You should see him wrinkle his nose in disgust if it's all chilly and unfriendly.
- Earlier today, Bill, Powell had rather a chilly reception from the Moroccan king.
- Also, they give the president's State of the Union speech a rather chilly reception.
Synonyms
unfriendly, unsympathetic, unwelcoming, forbidding, cold, cool, frosty, glacial, frigid;
haughty, supercilious, disdainful, aloof, distant, remote;
reserved, withdrawn, uncommunicative, unresponsive, unemotional, dispassionate, passionless, wooden, impersonal, formal, stiff, austere
informal stand-offish, offish
rare gelid
Derivatives
chilliness
/ noun ...- Since the Vietnam War, there has been a chilliness between the military and the press, but there was none with the Third Battalion.
- There's certainly some new wave chilliness warmed with the breath of Detroit soul, mixed with a bit of prog worship and '70s glam.
- Like many bird walkers, our leader was an older woman who dressed for the morning chilliness in a green army jacket and pink knit bonnet.