cold

Meanings

Adjective

• Having a low temperature.
• Causing the air to be cold.
• Feeling the sensation of coldness, especially to the point of discomfort.
• Unfriendly, emotionally distant or unfeeling.
• Dispassionate, not prejudiced or partisan, impartial.
• Completely unprepared; without introduction.
• Unconscious or deeply asleep; deprived of the metaphorical heat associated with life or consciousness.
• Perfectly, exactly, completely; by heart; down pat.
• Cornered, done for.
• Not pungent or acrid.
• Unexciting; dull; uninteresting.
• Affecting the sense of smell (as of hunting dogs) only feebly; having lost its odour.
• Not sensitive; not acute.
• Distant; said, in the game of hunting for some object, of a seeker remote from the thing concealed. Compare warm and hot.
• Having a bluish effect; not warm in colour.
• Rarely used or accessed, and thus able to be relegated to slower storage.
• Without compassion; heartless; ruthless
• Not radioactive.
• Not loaded with a round of live ammunition.
• Without electrical power being supplied.

Noun

• A condition of low temperature.
• A harsh place; a place of abandonment.
• A common, usually harmless, viral illness, usually with congestion of the nasal passages and sometimes fever.
• rheum, sleepy dust

Adverb

• While at low temperature.
• Without preparation.
• With finality.
• In a cold, frank, or realistically honest manner.

Related

Similar words

• chilled, chilly, freezing, frigid, glacial, icy, cool
• brass monkeys, nippy, parky, taters
• aloof, distant, hostile, standoffish, unfriendly, unwelcoming
• unprepared, unready
• coldness
• common cold, coryza, head cold, pose

Opposite words

• baking, boiling, heated, hot, scorching, searing, torrid, warm
• hot (See the corresponding synonyms of hot.)
• amiable, friendly, welcoming
• prepared, primed, ready
• hot, radioactive

Origin

• From Middle English cold, from Old English, specifically Anglian cald. The West Saxon form, ċeald, survived as early Middle English cheald, cheld or chald. Both descended from Proto-West Germanic *kald, from Proto-Germanic *kaldaz, a participle form of *kalaną, from Proto-Indo-European *gel- ("cold").
• Cognate with Scots cald, cauld, Saterland Frisian koold ("cold"), West Frisian kâld ("cold"), Dutch koud ("cold"), Low German kold, koolt, koold, German kalt ("cold"), Danish kold ("cold"), Norwegian kald ("cold"), Swedish kall ("cold").
• From Middle English cold, colde, from Old English cald, ċeald, from Proto-Germanic *kaldą, from Proto-Indo-European *gel-.
• Compare Saterland Frisian Keelde, West Frisian kjeld, Dutch koude, German Low German Kolle, Koll, German Kälte, Danish kulde, Swedish köld, Norwegian kulde, Icelandic kulda.
• From Middle English colde, from Old English calde, ċealde, from the adjective (see above).