chilly climate
- noun
- /ˈtʃɪli ˈklaɪmət/
- These findings are important in light of the research on what happens to women once they enter college, where too often they face what have been termed chilly climates, those environments that tend to provide little support for academically talented women.
Examples
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Gardening can be challenging in a chilly climate, where frost may threaten young plants.
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It's that it contributes to a chilly climate for women in general, and the goal is to not do that.
Blog text (29) -
The group took the challengingly chilly climate during the test sessions as an excellent studying experience.
Blog text (14) -
On the other hand, research notes that many female faculty members at community colleges feel marginalized and experience a chilly climate.
Academic text (2007) -
They "found only a slight gender effect on measures pertaining to the perception of a chilly climate" (p. 64).
Academic text (2007) -
Embracing more than 120 vendors, St. Lawrence's South Market also sells imported items such as tropical fruits and avocados that are not easily grown in Ontario's chilly climate.
Blog text (17) -
In chilly climates, many animals develop thick fur to stay warm.
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People often prefer to wear layers during the winter months in a chilly climate.
Synonyms
A pleasant, fairly low temperature
A light, pleasant cold in the air or shade
A feeling or condition of low temperature
A slight cold feeling in the air or on your body
A very cold feeling in the air, like on winter mornings
Antonyms
How Cold
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly and compositionally derived from 'chilly' (uncomfortably cool) modifying 'climate' (weather patterns), so a B1 learner who knows both words can infer it denotes a region with cold or moderately cold weather. This adjective+noun construction is a straightforward, cross-linguistically common pattern and therefore highly transparent to learners.
Etymology
Chilly climate comes from a simple image of a place whose usual weather makes you feel cool, because chilly means a little cold and climate means the usual weather of a place. So, it describes a place with weather that makes you feel 'cold'.