| a person who is very reserved or aloof in manner or who lacks normal cordiality, sympathy, or other feeling. |
| cold fish n. Informal An aloof person. |
cold fish
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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.