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pour cold water on
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Idioms and Phrases
Also, throw cold water on . Discourage or deter, as in Cutting my year-end bonus poured cold water on my loyalty to the company , or Hearing about the outbreak of cholera threw cold water on our plans to visit Bolivia . This term, with its image of putting out a fire with water, at one time meant “defame” or “slander”; the modern meaning dates from about 1800.Advertisement
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[tawr-choo-uhs ]
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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
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