Word.ws English Dictionary

cold reading

cold reading noun: the technique, or an instance, of using likely guesses and assumptions, then narrowing in on any positive responses, in order to give the impression of having information about a person or event.

Noun

cold reading (countable and uncountable, plural cold readings)

  1. The technique, or an instance, of using likely guesses and assumptions, then narrowing in on any positive responses, in order to give the impression of having information about a person or event.
    • The self-described psychic was merely using cold reading.
  2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see cold, reading.
    • Acting auditions often include cold reading.

Forms of cold reading

pluralcold readings

Questions about cold reading

What does cold reading mean?
Cold reading means the technique, or an instance, of using likely guesses and assumptions, then narrowing in on any positive responses, in order to give the impression of having information about a person or event.
What part of speech is cold reading?
Cold reading is a noun.
What is the plural of cold reading?
The plural of cold reading is cold readings.

Words near cold reading in the dictionary

  1. cold presses
  2. cold pricklies
  3. cold prickly
  4. cold rain process
  5. cold read
  6. cold reading
  7. cold readings
  8. cold reads
  9. cold robbies
  10. cold roll
  11. cold rolled

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: cold reading (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.

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