cold
/kəʊld
/adjective
1Of or at a low or relatively low temperature, especially when compared with the human body: a freezing cold day it’s cold outside a sharp, cold wind...
- The water was warm, almost scalding compared to the cold shock of the temperature that one day.
- Christmas eve, there is a cold wind, the temperatures in the desert dip below freezing.
- The problem has been made worse by standing flood water, freezing temperatures and a cold wind.
Synonyms
chilly, cool, freezing, icy, snowy, icy-cold, glacial, wintry, crisp, frosty, frigid, bitter, bitterly cold, biting, piercing, numbing, sharp, raw, polar, arctic, Siberian
informal nippy, brass monkeys
British informal parky
literary chill
rare hyperborean, boreal, hibernal, hiemal, gelid, brumal
1.1(Of a person) feeling uncomfortably cold: she was cold, and I put some more wood on the fire...
- When we are cold and uncomfortable, we tend to lose focus on the task at hand.
- As the flights lasted up to eighteen hours disembarking passengers were invariably cold and uncomfortable.
- Rising gas prices are going to mean hungry and cold people all winter long.
Synonyms
chilly, chilled, cool, freezing, frozen, frozen stiff, frozen/chilled to the bone/marrow, shivery, numbed, benumbed, suffering from hypothermia, hypothermic, suffering from exposure
1.2(Of food or drink) served or consumed without being heated or after cooling: a cold drink serve hot or cold...
- Soft drinks and hot and cold food will also be available.
- Cream teas, ice creams and cold drinks will be served throughout the afternoon.
- Tea is almost always consumed hot, as people in Kazakhstan think that drinking cold beverages will make one sick.
1.3Feeling or characterized by fear or horror: a cold shiver of fear...
- Its presence set a shiver of apprehension down the warrior's spine, and cold fear bubbling in his stomach.
- Dutifully, we step on the correct train and go home to the overdraft statement, or the divorce petition, or the cold fear that our kid may be a junkie.
- I know that sense of dread that so many children will feel: that cold fear as Sunday draws to an end and Monday morning looms.
1.4 [as complement] informal Unconscious: she was out cold...
- It seems that one time a golf ball struck by Mr Hastings landed straight on some unfortunate man's head, knocking him out cold for a few minutes.
- Fortunately, Rooibush tea has an extreme effect on me, and can knock me out cold within 20 minutes.
- It was enough to send us into happiness, and to knock Spurs out cold.
Synonyms
unconscious, knocked out, out for the count, KO'd, insensible, comatose, senseless
informal kayoed, dead to the world
British informal spark out
rare soporose, soporous
1.5Dead: lying cold and stiff in a coffin...
- Neither of us said a word as we watched the bright flame devour the cold, stiff copse of our dead son.
2Lacking affection or warmth of feeling; unemotional: how cold and calculating he was her cold black eyes...
- Did you know that as well as being cold and unemotional, we are also polite, traditional and reserved?
- Despite her terrible physical condition at the moment, the tone was so unemotionally cold.
- While being a rather cold and calculating man on the whole, Maddock had a soft spot for children.
Synonyms
unfriendly, cool, inhospitable, unwelcoming, unsympathetic, forbidding, stony, frigid, frosty, glacial, lukewarm, haughty, supercilious, disdainful, aloof, distant, remote, indifferent, reserved, withdrawn, uncommunicative, unresponsive, unfeeling, unemotional, dispassionate, passionless, wooden, impersonal, formal, stiff, austere;
cold-blooded, cold-hearted, stony-hearted
informal stand-offish, offish
rare gelid
2.1Not affected by emotion; objective: cold statistics...
- Their victory had been a triumph of cold logic over raw emotion.
- Spare a thought for the machinations of the global economy and the cold statistics we hear and read so much.
- Statistics can be used to say anything, but always appear relentless and objective and cold.
2.2Sexually unresponsive; frigid: Elise was cold and barren...
- Those with a flat, narrow mount of Venus girdled by the Life Line are cold and unresponsive.
- Sexual or cold, scheming or honest, Huston seems as driven to triumph as Lily is.
2.3Depressing or dispiriting; not suggestive of warmth: a cold light streamed through the window...
- I would much rather that than the cold impersonality we had going on right now.
- London's image to many is cold, wealthy and impersonal, but its real history is of revolt and subversion.
- Thus, when one side was bathed in light and warmth, the other would be a cold, dismal place shrouded in darkness.
2.4(Of a colour) containing pale blue or grey.Some people think blue is a cold colour, but it doesn't have to be....
- As for the cold colour palette, a pink blouse matched with a grey knee-length skirt will show your authority.
- Grey is the cold neutral colour; many languages identify it with blue or green.
3(Of the scent or trail of a hunted person or animal) no longer fresh and easy to follow: the trail went cold...
- The trail has to be cold by now, too much time has gone by and we don't know if he's changed his look again.
- However, following this early breakthrough the trail went cold.
- Last night officers insisted the trail had not gone cold.
3.1 [predicative] (In children’s games) far from finding or guessing what is sought.
4 [as complement] Without preparation or rehearsal: they went into the test cold...
- When he's warmed up at the start of a game instead of coming in cold off the bench, he is in less danger of injury.
- But it's still notable he was able to step in cold and run the offense so efficiently.
- Manufacturers had difficulty ramping up to meet the Army's needs from a cold industrial base.
4.1 informal At one’s mercy: they had him cold
noun
1 [mass noun] A low temperature; cold weather; a cold environment: my teeth chattered with the cold they nearly died of cold...
- But now they could die of starvation or cold as temperatures drop to freezing at night.
- The cold of the autumn rain made her very bones ache; worry for her brother grew into real fear.
- Weather is usually seasonal varying from extreme cold to temperate.
2A common infection in which the mucous membrane of the nose and throat becomes inflamed, typically causing running at the nose, sneezing, and a sore throat: Suzie’s got a cold a bad cold [as modifier]: a cold remedy...
- Many everyday illnesses like colds and sore throats can be easily treated at home without visiting a doctor.
- Most coughs and sore throats and all colds are viral infections.
- Minor illnesses such as colds and flu were the most common cause of sickness absence but most employers said stress was on the increase.
adverb North American informal
Completely; entirely: we stopped cold behind a turn in the staircase...
- There are blog sites and there are blog sites, but for us it seems that the Blast stopped the Comments cold.
- Trent stopped cold and very slowly turned around, his eyes throwing flames at David.
- The mud gets so thick and sticky that the clumps in my V-brakes stop my wheels cold.
Phrases
(as) cold as ice (or stone or the grave etc.)
catch a cold
cold comfort
cold feet
cold one
the cold shoulder
cold-shoulder someone
cold steel
in cold blood
in the cold light of day
out in the cold
throw (or pour) cold water on
Derivatives
coldish
/ adjective ...- It's a coldish morning, and there're no visitors allowed this morning due to the Amnesty International protestors causing a ruckus outside the fence.
- It was a coldish night, but everywhere there was a pagan semi-nudity.
Origin
Old English cald, of Germanic origin; related to Dutch koud and German kalt, also to Latin gelu 'frost'.
Cold goes back to an ancient root that was shared by Latin gelu ‘frost’, the root of congeal (Late Middle English), jelly, and cool. It appears in many common expressions, a number of which refer to parts of the body. If someone gives you the cold shoulder they are deliberately unfriendly. It is unlikely to be from ‘a cold shoulder of mutton’, for an unappetizing meal served to an unwelcome guest as is often claimed, but rather from a dismissive gesture of the body, involving a jerk or shrug of the shoulder. Cold-hearted first appeared in Shakespeare's play Antony and Cleopatra. The proverb cold hands, warm heart is much more recent: the earliest example is from the late 19th century.
The origin of cold comfort, meaning ‘poor or inadequate consolation’, is the idea that charity is often given in a cold or uncaring way. To go cold turkey is suddenly to give up taking a drug that you are addicted to, which can be an unpleasant process involving bouts of shivering and sweating that cause goose pimples reminiscent of the flesh of a dead plucked turkey. The expression dates from the 1920s. The Cold War was the state of political hostility that existed between the Soviet countries and Western powers from 1945 to 1990 although the term has been recorded from the beginning of the Second World War.