"cold fish" meaning in English

See cold fish in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Audio: en-au-cold fish.ogg [Australia] Forms: cold fish [plural], cold fishes [plural]
Etymology: Coined by William Shakespeare in 1611, see quotations. Etymology templates: {{coin|en|William Shakespeare|in=1611}} Coined by William Shakespeare in 1611 Head templates: {{en-noun|cold fish|+}} cold fish (plural cold fish or cold fishes)
  1. (idiomatic) A heartless individual; a person lacking empathy and emotion. Tags: idiomatic Synonyms: wet blanket, spoilsport Translations (heartless individual): suchar [masculine] (Czech), koude kikker (Dutch), pissefroid [feminine, masculine] (French), Griesgram [masculine] (German), 朴念仁 (bokunenjin) (Japanese), zimna ryba [feminine] (Polish)
    Sense id: en-cold_fish-en-noun-0~UwCEbG Disambiguation of 'heartless individual': 93 7
  2. (slang) A sexual partner who, during sex, lacks vigor or emotional reciprocity. Tags: slang Categories (topical): Sex Synonyms: dead fish, starfish
    Sense id: en-cold_fish-en-noun-WLGdcnaN Disambiguation of Sex: 11 89 Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, English entries with language name categories using raw markup, English entries with topic categories using raw markup, English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 12 88 Disambiguation of English entries with language name categories using raw markup: 14 86 Disambiguation of English entries with topic categories using raw markup: 11 89 Disambiguation of English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys: 17 83

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for cold fish meaning in English (3.9kB)

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  "forms": [
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      "form": "cold fish",
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        {
          "ref": "1993, Lisanne Norman, Turning Point",
          "text": "He wouldn't have thought her such a cold fish. Pity. Still, there was plenty of time. Perhaps when she got used to his company she would thaw a little.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2003, Robert Wilson, The Blind Man of Seville, page 13",
          "text": "You're a cold fish. You have no heart.",
          "type": "quotation"
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      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A heartless individual; a person lacking empathy and emotion."
      ],
      "id": "en-cold_fish-en-noun-0~UwCEbG",
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      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) A heartless individual; a person lacking empathy and emotion."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "wet blanket"
        },
        {
          "word": "spoilsport"
        }
      ],
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      "translations": [
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          "_dis1": "93 7",
          "code": "cs",
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          "sense": "heartless individual",
          "tags": [
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          "word": "suchar"
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          "_dis1": "93 7",
          "code": "nl",
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          "sense": "heartless individual",
          "word": "koude kikker"
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          "sense": "heartless individual",
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          "code": "de",
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          "sense": "heartless individual",
          "tags": [
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          "word": "Griesgram"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "93 7",
          "code": "ja",
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          "roman": "bokunenjin",
          "sense": "heartless individual",
          "word": "朴念仁"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "93 7",
          "code": "pl",
          "lang": "Polish",
          "sense": "heartless individual",
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          "orig": "en:Sex",
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      "examples": [
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          "text": "Ah, don't be such a cold fish!",
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      "glosses": [
        "A sexual partner who, during sex, lacks vigor or emotional reciprocity."
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        "(slang) A sexual partner who, during sex, lacks vigor or emotional reciprocity."
      ],
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          "word": "dead fish"
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        {
          "word": "starfish"
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        "(idiomatic) A heartless individual; a person lacking empathy and emotion."
      ],
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          "word": "spoilsport"
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        "(slang) A sexual partner who, during sex, lacks vigor or emotional reciprocity."
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        {
          "word": "starfish"
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    {
      "code": "cs",
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      "sense": "heartless individual",
      "tags": [
        "masculine"
      ],
      "word": "suchar"
    },
    {
      "code": "nl",
      "lang": "Dutch",
      "sense": "heartless individual",
      "word": "koude kikker"
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    {
      "code": "fr",
      "lang": "French",
      "sense": "heartless individual",
      "tags": [
        "feminine",
        "masculine"
      ],
      "word": "pissefroid"
    },
    {
      "code": "de",
      "lang": "German",
      "sense": "heartless individual",
      "tags": [
        "masculine"
      ],
      "word": "Griesgram"
    },
    {
      "code": "ja",
      "lang": "Japanese",
      "roman": "bokunenjin",
      "sense": "heartless individual",
      "word": "朴念仁"
    },
    {
      "code": "pl",
      "lang": "Polish",
      "sense": "heartless individual",
      "tags": [
        "feminine"
      ],
      "word": "zimna ryba"
    }
  ],
  "word": "cold fish"
}

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.