"cold comfort" meaning in All languages combined

See cold comfort on Wiktionary

Noun [English]

Audio: en-au-cold comfort.ogg Forms: cold comforts [plural]
Etymology: Popularized by William Shakespeare in The Taming of the Shrew, see quotations. Head templates: {{en-noun|~}} cold comfort (countable and uncountable, plural cold comforts)
  1. (idiomatic) Much less reassurance, consolation, aid, or pleasure than one needs or desires. Wikipedia link: William Shakespeare Tags: countable, idiomatic, uncountable Categories (topical): William Shakespeare Translations (much less reassurance, consolation, aid, or pleasure than one needs or desires): 不起作用的安慰 (bù qǐ zuòyòng de ānwèi) (Chinese Mandarin), laiha lohtu (Finnish), schwacher Trost [masculine] (German), sovány vigasz (Hungarian), brachán ó aréir [masculine] (Irish), сла́бое утеше́ние (sláboje utešénije) [neuter] (Russian), cysur bach [masculine] (Welsh)

Inflected forms

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  "etymology_text": "Popularized by William Shakespeare in The Taming of the Shrew, see quotations.",
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  "lang_code": "en",
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          "ref": "c. 1590–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Taming of the Shrew”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene i], page 221, column 1:",
          "text": "[…] or ſhall I complaine on thee to our miſtris, whoſe hand / (ſhe being now at hand) thou ſhalt ſoone feele, to thy / cold comfort, for being ſlow in thy hot office.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1863, James Fenimore Cooper, chapter 6, in Miles Wallingford:",
          "text": "The table was smoking and hissing; and Romeo Clawbonny, who acted as the everyday house-servant, or footman, had several times intimated that it might be well to commence operations, as a cold breakfast was very cold comfort.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1914, Edgar Rice Burroughs, chapter 9, in At the Earth's Core:",
          "text": "At least I should not die alone. Human eyes would watch me end. It was cold comfort I presume, but yet I derived some slight peace of mind from the contemplation of it.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2010 April 8, Ben Lando, “U.S. Officials Downplay Rash of Baghdad Attacks”, in Time, archived from the original on 2013-07-18:",
          "text": "But statistics are cold comfort when the latest explosion has leveled a nearby building.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
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        "Much less reassurance, consolation, aid, or pleasure than one needs or desires."
      ],
      "id": "en-cold_comfort-en-noun-nAguCVk6",
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          "consolation"
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          "aid",
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          "pleasure"
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      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) Much less reassurance, consolation, aid, or pleasure than one needs or desires."
      ],
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      "translations": [
        {
          "code": "cmn",
          "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
          "roman": "bù qǐ zuòyòng de ānwèi",
          "sense": "much less reassurance, consolation, aid, or pleasure than one needs or desires",
          "word": "不起作用的安慰"
        },
        {
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "sense": "much less reassurance, consolation, aid, or pleasure than one needs or desires",
          "word": "laiha lohtu"
        },
        {
          "code": "de",
          "lang": "German",
          "sense": "much less reassurance, consolation, aid, or pleasure than one needs or desires",
          "tags": [
            "masculine"
          ],
          "word": "schwacher Trost"
        },
        {
          "code": "hu",
          "lang": "Hungarian",
          "sense": "much less reassurance, consolation, aid, or pleasure than one needs or desires",
          "word": "sovány vigasz"
        },
        {
          "code": "ga",
          "lang": "Irish",
          "sense": "much less reassurance, consolation, aid, or pleasure than one needs or desires",
          "tags": [
            "masculine"
          ],
          "word": "brachán ó aréir"
        },
        {
          "code": "ru",
          "lang": "Russian",
          "roman": "sláboje utešénije",
          "sense": "much less reassurance, consolation, aid, or pleasure than one needs or desires",
          "tags": [
            "neuter"
          ],
          "word": "сла́бое утеше́ние"
        },
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          "code": "cy",
          "lang": "Welsh",
          "sense": "much less reassurance, consolation, aid, or pleasure than one needs or desires",
          "tags": [
            "masculine"
          ],
          "word": "cysur bach"
        }
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      ]
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  "word": "cold comfort"
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          "ref": "c. 1590–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Taming of the Shrew”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene i], page 221, column 1:",
          "text": "[…] or ſhall I complaine on thee to our miſtris, whoſe hand / (ſhe being now at hand) thou ſhalt ſoone feele, to thy / cold comfort, for being ſlow in thy hot office.",
          "type": "quote"
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          "ref": "1863, James Fenimore Cooper, chapter 6, in Miles Wallingford:",
          "text": "The table was smoking and hissing; and Romeo Clawbonny, who acted as the everyday house-servant, or footman, had several times intimated that it might be well to commence operations, as a cold breakfast was very cold comfort.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1914, Edgar Rice Burroughs, chapter 9, in At the Earth's Core:",
          "text": "At least I should not die alone. Human eyes would watch me end. It was cold comfort I presume, but yet I derived some slight peace of mind from the contemplation of it.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2010 April 8, Ben Lando, “U.S. Officials Downplay Rash of Baghdad Attacks”, in Time, archived from the original on 2013-07-18:",
          "text": "But statistics are cold comfort when the latest explosion has leveled a nearby building.",
          "type": "quote"
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        "(idiomatic) Much less reassurance, consolation, aid, or pleasure than one needs or desires."
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  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "cmn",
      "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
      "roman": "bù qǐ zuòyòng de ānwèi",
      "sense": "much less reassurance, consolation, aid, or pleasure than one needs or desires",
      "word": "不起作用的安慰"
    },
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "much less reassurance, consolation, aid, or pleasure than one needs or desires",
      "word": "laiha lohtu"
    },
    {
      "code": "de",
      "lang": "German",
      "sense": "much less reassurance, consolation, aid, or pleasure than one needs or desires",
      "tags": [
        "masculine"
      ],
      "word": "schwacher Trost"
    },
    {
      "code": "hu",
      "lang": "Hungarian",
      "sense": "much less reassurance, consolation, aid, or pleasure than one needs or desires",
      "word": "sovány vigasz"
    },
    {
      "code": "ga",
      "lang": "Irish",
      "sense": "much less reassurance, consolation, aid, or pleasure than one needs or desires",
      "tags": [
        "masculine"
      ],
      "word": "brachán ó aréir"
    },
    {
      "code": "ru",
      "lang": "Russian",
      "roman": "sláboje utešénije",
      "sense": "much less reassurance, consolation, aid, or pleasure than one needs or desires",
      "tags": [
        "neuter"
      ],
      "word": "сла́бое утеше́ние"
    },
    {
      "code": "cy",
      "lang": "Welsh",
      "sense": "much less reassurance, consolation, aid, or pleasure than one needs or desires",
      "tags": [
        "masculine"
      ],
      "word": "cysur bach"
    }
  ],
  "word": "cold comfort"
}

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This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-12-15 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-12-04 using wiktextract (8a39820 and 4401a4c). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.