to go cold turkey
7
8.2
- idiom
- Informal
:
dejarlo de golpe
- To break his smoking habit, he decided to go cold turkey and quit immediately.
- just go cold turkey
- try to go cold turkey
And it, I liken it to if you take a, if you take a drug addict and the day they go cold Turkey, you ask them to appreciate a sunset.
- And it, I liken it to if you take a, if you take a drug addict and the day they go cold Turkey, you ask them to appreciate a sunset.
- I mean, if you're trying to lose weight and you're going cold Turkey off of a fast food or candy rich or something like that diet, it's going to feel rather painful to you.
- All right, So silence doesn't mean you go cold Turkey.
Examples
-
If I’m a sex addict, then I’m going cold turkey.
-
I cut dairy long ago as a vegan, but I get that it may be easier for some to just go cold turkey.
Blog text (12) -
This trip is a perfect opportunity for him to go cold turkey, you know?
-
I took a month off work and went cold turkey.
Blog text (26) -
As a matter of fact, he said he had gone cold turkey for extended periods several times in his life.
Academic text (2010) -
I came off of it in November 2011, and it has been 8 months now going cold turkey on the injection.
Blog text (5) -
I went cold turkey into Paleo and switched to bacon and eggs.
Blog text (27) -
I went cold turkey!
Blog text (28) -
It may be the most obvious suggestion, but trying to go cold turkey when you're taking in a lot of caffeine over the course of a day is a recipe for disaster.
Blog text (23) -
It was a reaffirmation of my recent decision to test the effect of going cold turkey for a while - to shut off my daily cruising of the Huffington Post and several other aggregators and news feeds.
Blog text (6)
Synonyms
683
3.7
To stop doing something you once did
668
1.0
To stop doing a habit or activity like smoking
34
3.9
To stop doing something because you cannot continue or feel you have done enough
14
3.9
To stop using drugs or alcohol and stay sober
5
4.2
Stop doing something bad you do often, for example smoking
Antonyms
How Sudden
- Informal
7
8.2
- Informal
34
3.9
9
4.5
169
2.9
Surface Forms
Morphology
go + cold + turkey
The meaning 'to stop an addictive habit suddenly' is idiomatic and cannot be derived from the literal words 'go' (become), 'cold' and 'turkey' — knowing those constituents would not lead a B1 learner to infer cessation of an addiction. Although 'cold' can suggest suddenness, the presence of 'turkey' is arbitrary and the construction 'cold turkey' is a language-specific idiom not transparently compositional across languages.
Etymology
Go cold turkey may come from the image of someone quitting an addiction and getting cold, pale skin that looks like a cold turkey. That's why it means 'to stop something suddenly and completely'.