Meaning & use
coldhearted
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Meaning
adjectivecomparabledisapproving
Showing no kindness, sympathy or concern for the feelings of others.
Grammar: Used before a noun or after be: a coldhearted boss; he was coldhearted. Also written cold-hearted.
Patterns
- a coldhearted person
- be coldhearted about something
It was coldhearted of him to ignore her tears.
The coldhearted landlord evicted the family in winter.
Refusing to help seemed coldhearted, even if the rules said so.
Word forms
| comparative | more coldhearted |
|---|---|
| superlative | most coldhearted |
Common combinations
- coldhearted attitude
- His coldhearted attitude upset everyone.
- coldhearted decision
- Firing them just before the holidays was a coldhearted decision.
- coldhearted killer
- The film's villain is a coldhearted killer.
- seem coldhearted
- I did not mean to seem coldhearted.
- coldhearted boss
- She quit because of a coldhearted boss.
Synonyms and how they differ
- heartless
- Heartless is nearly the same but stresses a total lack of pity, often in a cruel act.
- unfeeling
- Unfeeling is milder and can mean simply not noticing others' emotions.
- callous
- Callous suggests having become hardened to suffering, while coldhearted suggests a lack of warmth by nature.
- ruthless
- Ruthless stresses pursuing a goal without mercy, whereas coldhearted is about lack of feeling.
Opposites
Word family
- coldheartedly adverb
- in a way that shows no feeling
- coldheartedness noun
- lack of sympathy
- cold-blooded adjective
- showing no emotion, especially in cruelty
- warmhearted adjective
- kind and sympathetic
Commonly confused: coldhearted or coldblooded?
coldhearted vs coldblooded
Cold-blooded can describe animals whose body temperature changes, or a person acting without feeling, which is cruder than coldhearted.
Practice
The manager's ______ refusal to give the sick employee time off angered his colleagues.
Choose one answer.
Coldhearted means lacking sympathy, so it fits a refusal that angered others. Warmhearted is the opposite.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “coldhearted”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.