Word.ws English Dictionary

cold fish

cold fish noun: a heartless individual; a person lacking empathy and emotion.

Noun

cold fish (plural cold fish or cold fishes)

  1. (idiomatic, potentially endearing) A heartless individual; a person lacking empathy and emotion.
    • […]it was thought ſhe was a Woman, and was turn'd into a cold fiſh, for ſhe wold not exchange fleſh with one that lou'd her: […]c. 1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Winters Tale”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount...
    • He wouldn't have thought her such a cold fish. Pity. Still, there was plenty of time. Perhaps when she got used to his company she would thaw a little.1993, Lisanne Norman, Turning Point
  2. (slang) A sexual partner who, during sex, lacks vigor or emotional reciprocity.
    Synonyms:
    dead fish, starfish

cold fish meaning in Tamil and Bengali

cold fish in Tamil

குளிர்

cold fish in Bengali

একজন নিষ্ঠুর ব্যক্তি

Synonyms of cold fish

10 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of cold fish

Forms of cold fish

pluralcold fish
pluralcold fishes

Origin of cold fish

Coined by William Shakespeare in 1611, see quotations.

Questions about cold fish

What does cold fish mean?
Cold fish means a heartless individual; a person lacking empathy and emotion.
What is cold fish in Tamil?
Cold fish in Tamil is குளிர். See Cold fish meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is cold fish?
Cold fish is a noun.
What is the plural of cold fish?
The plural of cold fish is cold fish.

Words near cold fish in the dictionary

  1. cold feet
  2. cold finger
  3. cold fingers
  4. cold fire
  5. cold fires
  6. cold fish
  7. cold fishes
  8. cold flour
  9. cold flow
  10. cold food powder
  11. cold forming

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: cold fish (page history and authors); cold fish (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); cold fish (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-cold fish.ogg.

Cite this entry: “cold fish.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/cold_fish. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.