"in the cold light of day" meaning in English

See in the cold light of day in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Prepositional phrase

IPA: /ɪn‿ðə ˈkəʊld laɪt‿əv ˈdeɪ/ [Received-Pronunciation], /ɪn‿ðə ˈkoʊld laɪt‿əv ˈdeɪ/ [General-American]
Rhymes: -eɪ Etymology: Probably an allusion to a situation being seen more clearly in daylight, and after some time has passed. The word cold is used in the sense of “dispassionate; not prejudiced or partisan; impartial”. Etymology templates: {{m|en|cold}} cold Head templates: {{head|en|prepositional phrase|head=}} in the cold light of day, {{en-PP}} in the cold light of day
  1. Viewed calmly and dispassionately after allowing emotions to cool or after having sobered up. Categories (topical): Emotions, Times of day Translations (viewed calmly and dispassionately after allowing emotions to cool): in alle rust (Dutch), tunteiden tasaannuttua (Finnish), à tête reposée (French), à froid (French), nüchtern betrachtet (German), a freddo (Italian), a mente fredda (Italian), w świetle dnia (Polish)
    Sense id: en-in_the_cold_light_of_day-en-prep_phrase-hti3zPRc Disambiguation of Emotions: 88 12 Disambiguation of Times of day: 62 38 Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, English entries with topic categories using raw markup, English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys, Pages with raw sortkeys Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 77 23 Disambiguation of English entries with topic categories using raw markup: 67 33 Disambiguation of English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys: 71 29 Disambiguation of Pages with raw sortkeys: 62 38 Disambiguation of 'viewed calmly and dispassionately after allowing emotions to cool': 95 5
  2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see in, the, cold, light, of, day: during the day; in daylight. Related terms: morning after, at the end of the day
    Sense id: en-in_the_cold_light_of_day-en-prep_phrase-aYe6NfaG

Download JSON data for in the cold light of day meaning in English (6.2kB)

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  "etymology_text": "Probably an allusion to a situation being seen more clearly in daylight, and after some time has passed. The word cold is used in the sense of “dispassionate; not prejudiced or partisan; impartial”.",
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          "type": "example"
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          "ref": "1912 March, Burton E[gbert] Stevenson, “Preparations”, in The Mystery of the Boule Cabinet: A Detective Story, New York, N.Y.: Dodd, Mead & Company, published 1918, →OCLC, page 119",
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          "ref": "2016, Susan Greenfield, “Dreaming”, in A Day in the Life of the Brain: The Neuroscience of Consciousness from Dawn till Dusk, London: Penguin Books, published 2017",
          "text": "To the dreamer, a dream can seem at the time eerily indistinguishable from everyday consciousness yet, in retrospect, upon waking, so self-evidently different. The fragmented narrative, the improbability of much of what happens – flying, for example, or the transmogrification of one individual suddenly into another, and so on – seem ludicrous, even embarrassing, in the cold light of day.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2018 August 16, Marshmello, Steve Mac, Dan Smith (lyrics and music), “Happier”, performed by Marshmello and Bastille",
          "text": "In the cold light of day, we're a flame in the wind / Not the fire that we've begun.",
          "type": "quotation"
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        "Viewed calmly and dispassionately after allowing emotions to cool or after having sobered up."
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          "cool",
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          "sobered up",
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      "translations": [
        {
          "_dis1": "95 5",
          "code": "nl",
          "lang": "Dutch",
          "sense": "viewed calmly and dispassionately after allowing emotions to cool",
          "word": "in alle rust"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "95 5",
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "sense": "viewed calmly and dispassionately after allowing emotions to cool",
          "word": "tunteiden tasaannuttua"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "95 5",
          "code": "fr",
          "lang": "French",
          "sense": "viewed calmly and dispassionately after allowing emotions to cool",
          "word": "à tête reposée"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "95 5",
          "code": "fr",
          "lang": "French",
          "sense": "viewed calmly and dispassionately after allowing emotions to cool",
          "word": "à froid"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "95 5",
          "code": "de",
          "lang": "German",
          "sense": "viewed calmly and dispassionately after allowing emotions to cool",
          "word": "nüchtern betrachtet"
        },
        {
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          "sense": "viewed calmly and dispassionately after allowing emotions to cool",
          "word": "a freddo"
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          "code": "it",
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          "word": "a mente fredda"
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          "sense": "viewed calmly and dispassionately after allowing emotions to cool",
          "word": "w świetle dnia"
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          "text": "And above the crowd of living figures rise colossal forms of armed warriors, and peaceful poets, and sceptred monarchs; these glowing crimson; those standing calm and pale in the cold light of day.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1989, Rüdiger Safranski, “Weimar”, in Ewald Osers, transl., Schopenhauer and the Wild Years of Philosophy, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, published 1991, book 1, page 72",
          "text": "However subtle the social pecking order may have been, the outsider entering the famous town with high expectations saw it in the cold light of day shrink into a philistine backwoods dump.",
          "type": "quotation"
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      "tags": [
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          "text": "And above the crowd of living figures rise colossal forms of armed warriors, and peaceful poets, and sceptred monarchs; these glowing crimson; those standing calm and pale in the cold light of day.",
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          "ref": "1989, Rüdiger Safranski, “Weimar”, in Ewald Osers, transl., Schopenhauer and the Wild Years of Philosophy, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, published 1991, book 1, page 72",
          "text": "However subtle the social pecking order may have been, the outsider entering the famous town with high expectations saw it in the cold light of day shrink into a philistine backwoods dump.",
          "type": "quotation"
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        "Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see in, the, cold, light, of, day: during the day; in daylight."
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  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "nl",
      "lang": "Dutch",
      "sense": "viewed calmly and dispassionately after allowing emotions to cool",
      "word": "in alle rust"
    },
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "viewed calmly and dispassionately after allowing emotions to cool",
      "word": "tunteiden tasaannuttua"
    },
    {
      "code": "fr",
      "lang": "French",
      "sense": "viewed calmly and dispassionately after allowing emotions to cool",
      "word": "à tête reposée"
    },
    {
      "code": "fr",
      "lang": "French",
      "sense": "viewed calmly and dispassionately after allowing emotions to cool",
      "word": "à froid"
    },
    {
      "code": "de",
      "lang": "German",
      "sense": "viewed calmly and dispassionately after allowing emotions to cool",
      "word": "nüchtern betrachtet"
    },
    {
      "code": "it",
      "lang": "Italian",
      "sense": "viewed calmly and dispassionately after allowing emotions to cool",
      "word": "a freddo"
    },
    {
      "code": "it",
      "lang": "Italian",
      "sense": "viewed calmly and dispassionately after allowing emotions to cool",
      "word": "a mente fredda"
    },
    {
      "code": "pl",
      "lang": "Polish",
      "sense": "viewed calmly and dispassionately after allowing emotions to cool",
      "word": "w świetle dnia"
    }
  ],
  "word": "in the cold light of day"
}

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.

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