cold cash
3
3.9
- noun
:
efectivo
- After selling his old car, he had a nice sum of cold cash to spend on a new one.
- get cold cash
Examples
-
Now, you boys got to turn it into cold cash.
-
We're talking 80,000 cold cash, my friend.
-
Oh, they'll sell for a lot of cold cash.
-
And see how much they're worth in cold cash!
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But I've got a million dollars in cold cash at stake... so this problem's gotta be solved.
-
He's getting $15,000, cold cash.
-
He won the lottery and will receive his prize in cold cash next week.
-
The store offers discounts for payments made in cold cash rather than credit.
Synonyms
10
2.7
Money in the form of bills and coins, not cards or electronic payments
3
3.4
Money you can use immediately
2
2.7
Money in cash that you can use immediately
Cash you keep for immediate use
A payment of money you give immediately when you buy something
Antonyms
How Liquid
Surface Forms
Morphology
cold + cash
The headword 'cash' clearly denotes tangible money, so part of the meaning is directly derivable. However, 'cold' functions as a metaphorical modifier (like in 'cold hard cash') to signal immediacy or on-hand funds rather than literal temperature, a use that is not fully predictable for a B1 learner who knows only the basic senses of the words. Cross-linguistic realizations of this intensifying adjective vary, so the connection is partial rather than fully transparent.
Etymology
Cold cash may come from the image of cold money you can hold in your hand, not money kept in a bank or paid by check. That's why it means 'money in the form of actual cash' that you can use right away.