hot and cold
4
6.8
- idiom
- Informal
:
cambiante
- You're you're dating someone and they're hot and cold and all of a sudden they pull away and they don't answer your texts when they say that they will.
- runs hot and cold
- alternately hot and cold
- blowing hot and cold
My friends would describe me as hot and cold, hot and cold.
- My friends would describe me as hot and cold, hot and cold.
- Apollonia, I have a hot and cold girlfriend.
- Like you get this sort of weird ambivalent attachment style where you're hot and cold as well and it's just super damaging.
- If someone is inconsistent, hot and cold, flaky, sends one word texts, that has to be a turn off.
- And I'm and not when there's even an end game, just just by toxic men who throw the hot and cold game at them.
Examples
-
HuffPo is all over the map editorially (as is the site owner), so I don't think of them as moving hearts and minds very much; they run hot and cold on people so often.
Blog text (11) -
Mr. Otellini's relationship with the president has been hot and cold since Mr. Obama took office.
Blog text (14) -
- Boy, you blow hot and cold.
-
You're becoming the queen of hot and cold.
-
"You have blown hot and cold too often; I am totally skeptical.
Fiction book (1993) -
Like you get this sort of weird ambivalent attachment style where you're hot and cold as well and it's just super damaging.
-
She was alternately hot and cold over it, pitying the cats while trying to justify her part.
Fiction book (1995) -
This is contingent on our ability to have a replacement ready (can you say, Shevchenko?), but he's entirely too hot and cold to depend on anymore.
Blog text (30) -
West drove around the city much of the night, mopping her face, popping Motrin, and turning the air conditioner on and off as she vacillated between hot and cold.
Fiction book (1997) -
She is so hot and cold with her friends, one moment excited to see them and the next avoiding them completely.
Synonyms
91
4.4
A person whose mood or behavior changes suddenly
50
3.2
Often feels angry or sad quickly for no clear reason
39
6.2
Changing often in a way you cannot rely on
34
7.4
Having sudden unpredictable changes in feelings toward others
19
7.9
Showing sudden changes in mood, like going from happy to angry
12
6.5
Tends to change mood suddenly and act in an unexpected way
Often changes mood or behavior quickly and without warning
Changing appearance or behaviour to fit different situations, often not honest
Antonyms
How Consistent
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'alternating enthusiasm and indifference' is directly derivable from the constituents: 'hot' (enthusiastic) + 'and' (joining/opposing) + 'cold' (aloof). This temperature-for-emotion metaphor is common cross-linguistically and follows a straightforward compositional pattern, so a B1 learner who knows the individual words would readily infer the MWE's meaning.
Etymology
Hot and cold uses a clear picture: someone who is hot (warm and excited) one moment and cold (distant and uninterested) the next. So, it means 'often changing feelings'.