cold
/kəʊld/ adjective, noun, adverb
Forms colder coldest colds
- adjective (of a thing) Having a low temperature. “A cold wind whistled through the trees.”
- adjective (of the weather) Causing the air to be cold. “The forecast is that it will be very cold today.”
- adjective (of a person or animal) Feeling the sensation of coldness, especially to the point of discomfort. “She was so cold she was shivering.”
- adjective Unfriendly; emotionally distant or unfeeling. “She shot me a cold glance before turning her back.”
- adjective Chilled, filled with an uncomfortable sense of fear, dread, or alarm.
- adjective Dispassionate; not prejudiced or partisan; impartial. “Let's look at this tomorrow with a cold head.”
- adjective Completely unprepared; without introduction. “He was assigned cold calls for the first three months.”
- adjective Unconscious or deeply asleep; deprived of the metaphorical heat associated with life or consciousness. “I knocked him out cold.”
- noun (uncountable) A condition of low temperature. “Come in, out of the cold.”
- noun (with 'the', figurative) A harsh place; a place of abandonment. “The former politician was left out in the cold after his friends deserted him.”
- noun (countable, pathology) A common, usually harmless, usually viral illness, usually with congestion of the nasal passages and sometimes fever. “I caught a miserable cold and had to stay home for a week”
- noun (uncountable, slang) Rheum; sleepy dust.
- adverb At a low temperature. “The steel was processed cold.”
- adverb Without preparation. “The speaker went in cold and floundered for a topic.”
- adverb (slang, informal, dated) In a cold, frank, or realistically honest manner.
Synonyms
chilled chilly freezing frigid glacial icy cool brass monkeys nippy parky taters aloof distant hostile standoffish unfriendly unwelcoming frosty hankty hard-to-get common cold coldness low temperature frigidity frigidness stale dusty moth-eaten cold-blooded inhuman
Antonyms
baking boiling heated hot scorching searing torrid warm calid choleric tepid mild
Etymology
Inherited from Middle English cold, from Anglian Old English cald. The West Saxon form, ċeald (“cold”), survived as early Middle English cheald, cheld, or chald. Both descended from Proto-West Germanic *kald, from Proto-Germanic *kaldaz (“cold”), a participle form of *kalaną (“to be cold, to freeze”), from Proto-Indo-European *gel- (“to be cold, to freeze”).
Cognate with Scots cauld (“cold”), Saterland Frisian koold (“cold”), West Frisian kâld (“cold”), Alemannic German chalt, choalt, cholt, chélte (“cold”), Bavarian ckolt, kholt, koid, kòlt (“cold”), Central Franconian kalt (“cold”), Cimbrian kalt, khalt (“cold”), Dutch koud (“cold”), German kalt (“cold”), Low German kold, koolt (“cold”), Luxembourgish kal (“cold”), Mòcheno khòlt, kòlt (“cold”), Vilamovian kāłt (“cold”), Yiddish קאַלט (kalt, “cold”), Danish kold (“cold”), Faroese and Icelandic kaldur (“cold”), Norwegian Bokmål kald (“cold”), Norwegian Nynorsk kald, kald’u (“cold”), Swedish kall (“cold”), Gothic 𐌺𐌰𐌻𐌳𐍃 (kalds, “cold”); also Latin gelū, gelum, gelus (“frost; chill, cold”), Belarusian хо́лад (xólad, “cold”), Bulgarian хлад (hlad, “chill, coolness”), Czech chlad (“cold”), Macedonian лад (lad, “shade; coolness”), Polish chłód (“cold”), Russian and Ukrainian хо́лод (xólod, “cold”), Serbo-Croatian хла̑д, hlȃd (“shade”), Sanskrit जड (jaḍa, “cold; stiff”), जल (jala, “water”). Related to cool.
Inherited from Middle English cold, colde, from Old English cald, ċeald (“cold, coldness”), from Proto-West Germanic *kald, from Proto-Germanic *kaldą (“coldness”), from Proto-Indo-European *gel- (“cold”).
Cognate with Saterland Frisian Keelde (“cold”), West Frisian kjeld (“cold”), Dutch koude (“cold”), German Low German Kolle, Koll (“cold”), German Kälte (“cold”), Danish kulde (“cold”), Swedish köld (“cold”), Norwegian kulde (“cold”), Icelandic kuldi (“cold”).
Inherited from Middle English colde, from Old English calde, ċealde (“coldly”), from the adjective (see above).
Webster’s 1913
- adjective Deprived of heat, or having a low temperature; not warm or hot; gelid; frigid. "The snowy top of cold Olympis." Milton.
- adjective Lacking the sensation of warmth; suffering from the absence of heat; chilly; shivering; as, to be cold.
- noun The relative absence of heat or warmth.
- noun The sensation produced by the escape of heat; chilliness or chillness.
Etymology [OE. cold, cald, AS. cald, ceald; akin to OS. kald, D. koud, G. kalt, Icel. kaldr, Dan. kold, Sw. kall, Goth. kalds, L. gelu frost, gelare to freeze. Orig. p. p. of AS. calan to be cold, Icel. kala to freeze. Cf. Cool, a., Chill, n.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “cold”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details