Meaning & use
cold shoulder
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Meanings
nounsingularinformalfigurative
A deliberately unfriendly or ignoring attitude shown to someone, usually as a form of rejection.
Grammar: Almost always with the verb give or get: give someone the cold shoulder.
Patterns
- give someone the cold shoulder
- get the cold shoulder from someone
After the argument, she gave me the cold shoulder for a week.
He got the cold shoulder from his old teammates.
The new neighbors received the cold shoulder at the first meeting.
verbtransitiveinformal
To treat someone in a cold and ignoring way on purpose.
Grammar: Takes a person as the object: they cold-shouldered her.
Patterns
- cold-shoulder someone
The group cold-shouldered the newcomer at lunch.
Voters cold-shouldered the candidate after the scandal.
He felt cold-shouldered by his former friends.
Word forms
| verb third person singular | cold-shoulders |
|---|---|
| verb past tense | cold-shouldered |
| verb -ing form | cold-shouldering |
Common combinations
- give someone the cold shoulder
- Don't give him the cold shoulder just because he forgot.
- get the cold shoulder
- I got the cold shoulder when I walked into the office.
- turn a cold shoulder
- The crowd turned a cold shoulder to the speaker.
- receive the cold shoulder
- Early inventors often receive the cold shoulder from investors.
- treated with the cold shoulder
- She was treated with the cold shoulder at the reunion.
Synonyms and how they differ
- snub
- A snub is usually a single act of ignoring someone, while the cold shoulder is more of a continued attitude.
- brush-off
- A brush-off is a quick, dismissive refusal, but the cold shoulder can last days and involves silence.
- ostracize
- Ostracize is formal and means shutting someone out of a whole group, which is stronger than ignoring them.
- snubbing
- Snubbing describes a rude act in public, whereas cold shoulder can be quiet and private.
Opposites
Word family
- cold-shoulder verb
- to ignore someone on purpose
- cold adjective
- unfriendly in manner
- shoulder noun
- the joint between the arm and the body
- cold-shouldered adjective
- treated in an ignoring way
Commonly confused: cold shoulder or cold feet? cold shoulder or cold turkey?
cold shoulder vs cold feet
Cold feet means sudden nervousness about a plan, not unfriendliness toward a person.
cold shoulder vs cold turkey
Cold turkey means stopping a habit abruptly, and is unrelated to ignoring someone.
Practice
When Maya forgot her friend's birthday, the friend gave her the ____ for a week.
Choose one answer.
Give someone the cold shoulder means to ignore them on purpose. Cold feet is nervousness, cold turkey is quitting a habit, and a cold front is weather.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “cold shoulder”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.