cold fish

cold fish

noun Informal.
a person who is very reserved or aloof in manner or who lacks normal cordiality, sympathy, or other feeling.

Origin:
1940–45
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
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Cold fish is always a great word to know.
So is interrobang. Does it mean:
a printed punctuation mark (‽), available only in some typefaces, designed to combine the question mark (?) and the exclamation point (!), indicating a mixture of query and interjection, as after a rhetorical question.
a children's mummer's parade, as on the Fourth of July, with prizes for the best costumes.
Collins
World English Dictionary
cold fish
 
n
an unemotional and unfriendly person

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
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Slang Dictionary

cold fish definition


  1. n.
    a dull and unresponsive person. : I hate to shake hands with a cold fish like that. He didn't even smile.
Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions by Richard A. Spears.Fourth Edition.
Copyright 2007. Published by McGraw Hill.
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American Heritage
Idioms & Phrases

cold fish

A hard-hearted, unfeeling individual, one who shows no emotion, as in Not even the eulogy moved him; he's a real cold fish. This expression was used by Shakespeare in The Winter's Tale (4:4): "It was thought she was a woman, and was turn'd into a cold fish." However, it came into wider use only in the first half of the 1900s.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer.
Copyright © 1997. Published by Houghton Mifflin.
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