COLD, a.

1. Not warm or hot; gelid; frigid; a relative term. A substance is cold to the touch when it is less warm than the body, and when in contact, the heat of the body passes from the body to the substance; as, cold air; a cold stone; cold water. It denotes a greater degree of the quality than cool. [See the noun.]
2. Having the sensation of cold; chill; shivering, or inclined to shiver; as, I am cold.
3. Having cold qualities; as, a cold plant. – Bacon.
4. Frigid; wanting passion, zeal or ardor; indifferent; unconcerned; not animated, or easily excited into action; as, a cold spectator; a cold Christian; a cold lover, or friend; a cold temper. – Hooker. Addison. Thou art neither cold nor hot. – Rev. iii.
5. Not moving; unaffecting; not animated; not able to excite feeling; spiritless; as, a cold discourse; a cold jest. – Addison.
6. Reserved; coy; not affectionate, cordial or friendly; indicating indifference; as, a cold look; a cold return of civilities; a cold reception. – Clarendon.
7. Not heated by sensual desire. – Shak.
8. Not hasty; not violent. – Johnson.
9. Not affecting the scent strongly. – Shak.
10. Not having the scent strongly affected. – Shak.

1. The sensation produced in animal bodies by the escape of heat, and the consequent contraction of the fine vessels. Also, the cause of that sensation. Heat expands the vessels, and cold contracts them; and the transition from an expanded to a contracted state is accompanied with a sensation to which, as well as to the cause of it, we give the denomination of cold. Hence cold is a privation of heat, or the cause of it. – Encyc. Bacon.
2. A shivering; the effect of the contraction of the fine vessels of the body; chilliness, or chillness. – Dryden.
3. A disease; indisposition occasioned by cold; catarrh.

1. Deprived of heat, or having a low temperature; not warm or hot; gelid; frigid.
   
   
   "The snowy top of cold Olympis." Milton.
2. The relative absence of heat or warmth.
3. To become cold.
   
   
   [Obs.] Chaucer.
4. Lacking the sensation of warmth; suffering from the absence of heat; chilly; shivering; as, to be cold.
5. The sensation produced by the escape of heat; chilliness or chillness.
   
   

   When she saw her lord prepared to part,
   A deadly cold ran shivering to her heart.
   Dryden.

6. Not pungent or acrid.
   
   
   "Cold plants." Bacon
7. A morbid state of the animal system produced by exposure to cold or dampness; a catarrh.
   
   

   Cold sore (Med.), a vesicular eruption appearing about the mouth as the result of a cold, or in the course of any disease attended with fever. -- To leave one out in the cold, to overlook or neglect him. [Colloq.]

8. Wanting in ardor, intensity, warmth, zeal, or passion; spiritless; unconcerned; reserved.
   
   

   A cold and unconcerned spectator.
   T. Burnet.

   No cold relation is a zealous citizen.
   Burke.

9. Unwelcome; disagreeable; unsatisfactory.
   
   
   "Cold news for me." "Cold comfort." Shak.
10. Wanting in power to excite; dull; uninteresting.
    
    

    What a deal of cold business doth a man misspend the better part of life in!
    B. Jonson.

    The jest grows cold . . . when in comes on in a second scene.
    Addison.

11. Affecting the sense of smell (as of hunting dogs) but feebly; having lost its odor; as, a cold scent.
12. Not sensitive; not acute.
    
    

    Smell this business with a sense as cold
    As is a dead man's nose.
    Shak.

13. Distant; -- said, in the game of hunting for some object, of a seeker remote from the thing concealed.
14. Having a bluish effect. Cf. Warm, 8.
    
    

    Cold abscess. See under Abscess. -- Cold blast See under Blast, n., 2. -- Cold blood. See under Blood, n., 8. -- Cold chill, an ague fit. Wright. -- Cold chisel, a chisel of peculiar strength and hardness, for cutting cold metal. Weale. -- Cold cream. See under Cream. -- Cold slaw. See Cole slaw. -- In cold blood, without excitement or passion; deliberately.

    He was slain in cold blood after the fight was over.
    Sir W. Scott.

    To give one the cold shoulder, to treat one with neglect.

    Syn. -- Gelid; bleak; frigid; chill; indifferent; unconcerned; passionless; reserved; unfeeling; stoical.