"cold case" meaning in English

See cold case in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Audio: En-au-cold case.ogg [Australia] Forms: cold cases [plural]
Head templates: {{en-noun}} cold case (plural cold cases)
  1. (law enforcement, slang) A criminal investigation that has not been solved after a considerable time but remains “on the books” and may be reopened when new evidence appears. Tags: slang Categories (topical): Law enforcement
    Sense id: en-cold_case-en-noun-WwnjV5ff Topics: government, law-enforcement
  2. A refrigerated display case used for selling items that are kept cold. Related terms: open problem Translations (an old unsolved case): megoldatlan ügy (Hungarian), megoldatlan bűncselekmény (Hungarian), megoldatlan bűneset (Hungarian), függőben maradt ügy (Hungarian), 미제 사건 (mije sageon) (Korean), kallt fall [neuter] (Swedish)
    Sense id: en-cold_case-en-noun-mG1-GcX3 Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 26 74 Disambiguation of 'an old unsolved case': 15 85

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for cold case meaning in English (3.5kB)

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  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
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          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Law enforcement",
          "orig": "en:Law enforcement",
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          "source": "w"
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      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2015, Peter James, You Are Dead, New York, N.Y.: Minotaur Books",
          "text": "‘I had my researchers check the files on all the mispers and cold cases five years either side of that date estimate, on females of that approximate age. This is what they found. Fill your boots.’ He took a large gulp of his drink. / ‘I’m impressed, you've been moving fast.’ / ‘On it like a car bonnet, mate.’",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A criminal investigation that has not been solved after a considerable time but remains “on the books” and may be reopened when new evidence appears."
      ],
      "id": "en-cold_case-en-noun-WwnjV5ff",
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      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(law enforcement, slang) A criminal investigation that has not been solved after a considerable time but remains “on the books” and may be reopened when new evidence appears."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "slang"
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      "topics": [
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        {
          "ref": "2015, Andie Mitchell, It Was Me All Along: A Memoir, page 61",
          "text": "We'd each grab a twenty-ounce Coke from the cold case, and at the end of the movie, Kate would still have a nearly full bottle.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A refrigerated display case used for selling items that are kept cold."
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      "id": "en-cold_case-en-noun-mG1-GcX3",
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          "_dis1": "15 85",
          "code": "hu",
          "lang": "Hungarian",
          "sense": "an old unsolved case",
          "word": "megoldatlan ügy"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "15 85",
          "code": "hu",
          "lang": "Hungarian",
          "sense": "an old unsolved case",
          "word": "megoldatlan bűncselekmény"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "15 85",
          "code": "hu",
          "lang": "Hungarian",
          "sense": "an old unsolved case",
          "word": "megoldatlan bűneset"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "15 85",
          "code": "hu",
          "lang": "Hungarian",
          "sense": "an old unsolved case",
          "word": "függőben maradt ügy"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "15 85",
          "code": "ko",
          "lang": "Korean",
          "roman": "mije sageon",
          "sense": "an old unsolved case",
          "word": "미제 사건"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "15 85",
          "code": "sv",
          "lang": "Swedish",
          "sense": "an old unsolved case",
          "tags": [
            "neuter"
          ],
          "word": "kallt fall"
        }
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          "text": "‘I had my researchers check the files on all the mispers and cold cases five years either side of that date estimate, on females of that approximate age. This is what they found. Fill your boots.’ He took a large gulp of his drink. / ‘I’m impressed, you've been moving fast.’ / ‘On it like a car bonnet, mate.’",
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        "(law enforcement, slang) A criminal investigation that has not been solved after a considerable time but remains “on the books” and may be reopened when new evidence appears."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "slang"
      ],
      "topics": [
        "government",
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      ],
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        "A refrigerated display case used for selling items that are kept cold."
      ],
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  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "hu",
      "lang": "Hungarian",
      "sense": "an old unsolved case",
      "word": "megoldatlan ügy"
    },
    {
      "code": "hu",
      "lang": "Hungarian",
      "sense": "an old unsolved case",
      "word": "megoldatlan bűncselekmény"
    },
    {
      "code": "hu",
      "lang": "Hungarian",
      "sense": "an old unsolved case",
      "word": "megoldatlan bűneset"
    },
    {
      "code": "hu",
      "lang": "Hungarian",
      "sense": "an old unsolved case",
      "word": "függőben maradt ügy"
    },
    {
      "code": "ko",
      "lang": "Korean",
      "roman": "mije sageon",
      "sense": "an old unsolved case",
      "word": "미제 사건"
    },
    {
      "code": "sv",
      "lang": "Swedish",
      "sense": "an old unsolved case",
      "tags": [
        "neuter"
      ],
      "word": "kallt fall"
    }
  ],
  "word": "cold case"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-04-26 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (93a6c53 and 21a9316). 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.