cold-water flat
1
8.8
- noun
- Archaic
:
piso sin agua caliente
- We had a cold-water flat, the walls plastered so unevenly we painted them black.
- live in a cold-water flat
Examples
-
If you were sitting in some little cold-water flat on the South Side of the city of Chicago, all you had to do was have your number come up and you were gonna be okay.
-
I'll never forget, when I was a kid we lived in a tenement, in a cold-water flat.
-
It's not very warm, I'm afraid this is a cold water flat.
-
There they worked outside the official culture, lived in cold-water flats, and wrote what they wanted.
Academic text (2001) -
I am now living in Hyde Park, N.Y., some years removed from the cold water flat on East 43rd St.
Fiction book (1995) -
Apparently, he shared his dismal cold water flat only with his father, a cheerful old fellow with an aura of deep wisdom about him.
Fiction book (2002) -
He was half Polish, half German, born in a cold-water flat on East Eighty-seventh Street, out of Brooklyn Law School.
Fiction book (1996) -
He'd even entertained ideas about bringing her back to London with him, setting up house in some cramped cold-water flat.
Fiction book (1990) -
She had been arrested for protests, had borne a child and reared him alone, and had lived in a cold-water flat.
Fiction book (1997) -
After years of struggling in the city, they finally found a cold-water flat that they could afford.
Synonyms
A cheaper apartment with few repairs or updates
Antonyms
How Modern
Surface Forms
Morphology
cold-water + flat
The compound is partly compositional: a B1 learner who knows 'cold', 'water', and 'flat' can infer a flat where the water is cold (i.e. no hot running water), so the core idea is derivable from the constituents. However, the broader, dialectal sense that it implies older accommodations or lack of other modern conveniences (like central heating) is not fully predictable without exposure, making the expression only partially transparent.
Etymology
Cold-water flat comes from old apartments that had only a cold tap and no hot running water or central heating, so the words cold, water, and flat create a clear picture. That's why it means 'an apartment' that 'lacks modern conveniences'.