cold shoulder
8
4.6
- idiom
- /koʊld ˈʃoʊldər/
- Informal
:
desaire
- They'll give you the cold shoulder.
- give the cold shoulder
- get the cold shoulder
- receive the cold shoulder
He's like, oh, kind of gave you the cold shoulder.
- He's like, oh, kind of gave you the cold shoulder.
- Well, if you ever wanted, what would you guess to give someone the cold shoulder?
Examples
-
But then when I ask for help in return, I often get a cold shoulder.
Blog text (29) -
Nothing—she just gave him the cold shoulder.
Blog text (20) -
We are tired of watching our government give us the cold shoulder.
Blog text (31) -
I figured you were just giving me the cold shoulder.
Fiction book (1990) -
She gives me the cold shoulder for the rest of the weekend.
-
She gave me the cold shoulder and walked away, and another co-worker who saw it said, "What's wrong with her?"
Blog text (1) -
Both substantively and symbolically, Clinton began his first term by turning a cold shoulder to the White House press corps.
Academic text (2000) -
After their argument, she decided to give him the cold shoulder during dinner.
-
He felt the cold shoulder from his coworkers after he made that controversial comment.
-
Instead of addressing the issue, she opted to give her friend the cold shoulder for the week.
Synonyms
16
6.6
An act of ignoring someone to show you do not respect them
5
6.0
A cold short reply that shows no interest
4
7.8
An act of refusing to speak to or notice someone
Antonyms
How Welcoming
31
1.0
329
1.0
46
4.4
- Informal
8
4.6
1
7.6
Surface Forms
Morphology
cold + shoulder
The figurative sense of 'cold' (unfriendly or emotionally distant) combined with 'shoulder' (a body part) evokes the image of turning away from someone, so a learner who knows the emotional sense of 'cold' could plausibly infer the meaning. However, the phrase is a fixed idiomatic collocation (often used as 'give someone the cold shoulder') and its noun phrase usage and conventionalized meaning are not fully predictable from the parts, so it is not fully transparent.
Etymology
The idiom cold shoulder may come from an old way of showing someone they were not welcome: a host would give a guest a cold piece of meat, often the shoulder, instead of a hot meal. So giving someone a cold shoulder came to mean 'to ignore' or 'to show dislike'.