cold hand
1
8.2
- noun
- Literature
:
mano fría
- I squeezed my daughter's cold hand, glanced down to check that her coat was still buttoned up.
- cold hand touched
- felt a cold hand
- held her cold hand
Like you won't take my gun, whatever the saying is from my dead cold hands.
- Like you won't take my gun, whatever the saying is from my dead cold hands.
Examples
-
A cold hand seemed to brush against his ears, sending a shudder through his muscles.
Fiction book (1999) -
Grace sat again and held Mary's cold hand in her warm one and rubbed it.
Fiction book (1999) -
For a moment, the presentiment of death laid its cold hand upon the manager's heart.
Blog text (27) -
Alone with my sick twin sister, I stepped up to the gurney and took her cold hand in mine.
Fiction book (1995) -
Her flesh crawled as his cold hand reached down and lifted the hem of her dress.
Fiction book (1992) -
I smoothed her hair back from her cheek, picked up her cold hand lying still on the sheet, and squeezed it.
Fiction book (1995) -
I felt her cold hand—then realized it was Bel, shaking me awake.
Fiction book (1999) -
As she held his cold hand, she realized he was no longer alive.
-
He felt a chill run down his spine when he touched her cold hand in the dark.
-
The eerie atmosphere was amplified by the cold hand reaching out from the shadows.
Synonyms
8
4.6
To ignore someone on purpose to show you dislike them
Antonyms
How Welcoming
Surface Forms
Morphology
The primary sense 'an unemotional or unwelcoming touch' follows directly from combining 'cold' (emotionally aloof/unfriendly) with 'hand' (a touch or gesture); the metaphor of temperature = emotional warmth is common cross-linguistically. Because the relation between the parts and the MWE meaning is straightforward and predictable, a B1 learner who knows both constituents should be able to infer the meaning.
Etymology
Cold hand comes from a simple image: a cold hand touching someone, like the chill of a dead body or an icy touch from a person who does not care. That's why it now means a touch or gesture that feels 'unfriendly' or a sign of 'danger' or death.