Ice-cold means as cold as ice, whether a drink or a wind. Not chilled — properly cold.
It goes before a noun with a hyphen and after a verb usually without, so an ice-cold beer and the water was ice cold. There is a figurative use about manner, since somebody ice-cold under pressure is entirely calm, and it is a compliment in sport and in poker. An ice-cold stare is a different thing altogether and is a warning. The word does emphasis rather than measurement.
1adjectiveice-coldExtremely cold.
“He drank a glass of ice-cold water.”
2adjectivecompletelyCompletely calm and unemotional under pressure.
“She was ice-cold from the penalty spot.”
Also accepted in games: ice cold
Old English
īsċeald
Middle English
*is-cold
English, today
ice-cold
From Middle English is-cold, from Old English īsċeald; equivalent to ice + cold. Cognate with stq ieskoold (“ice-cold”), West Frisian iiskâld (“ice-cold”), Dutch ijskoud (“ice-cold”), Afrikaans yskoud (“ice-cold”), German Low German ieskold (“ice-cold”), German eiskalt (“ice-cold”), Yiddish אײַזקאַלט (“ice-cold”), Danish iskold (“ice-cold”), Swedish iskall (“ice-cold”), Norwegian iskald (“ice-cold”), Faroese ísakaldur (“ice-cold”), Icelandic ískaldur (“ice-cold”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in A Man Called Ove, Weather & Seasons
First appears in chapter 7 of A Man Called Ove.
Practise this word