Word.ws English Dictionary

come in from the cold

UK/ˈkʌm ˌɪn fɹəm ðə ˈkəʊ̯ld/US/ˈkʌm ˌɪn fɹəm ðə ˈkoʊ̯ld/

come in from the cold verb: of a spy: to return home after having gone undercover in enemy territory.

Verb

come in from the cold (third-person singular simple present comes in from the cold, present participle coming in from the cold, simple past came in from the cold, past participle come in from the cold)

  1. (idiomatic, intransitive) Of a spy: to return home after having gone undercover in enemy territory.
    • I mean … one can't be out in the cold all the time; one has to come in from the cold … do you see what I mean?1963 September, John le Carré [pseudonym; David John Moore Cornwell], “The Circus”, in The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Coward-McCann, published 1964, →OCLC...
  2. (figuratively, idiomatic, intransitive) To gain widespread acceptance in a group or society, especially where there was not any before.
    • Long an outsider in Western politics, Portugal came in from the cold after the 1974 Carnation Revolution.

Forms of come in from the cold

third-person singular presentcomes in from the cold
present participlecoming in from the cold
pastcame in from the cold
past participlecome in from the cold
alternative formcome in out of the cold

Origin of come in from the cold

Literally, the term refers to someone who is outdoors when the weather is cold coming indoors to a warm place. The idiomatic senses were popularized by the title of the novel The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1963) by the British author John le Carré (1931–2020); “the Cold” is a pun on the Cold War, during which the novel is set.

Questions about come in from the cold

What does come in from the cold mean?
Come in from the cold means of a spy: to return home after having gone undercover in enemy territory.
What part of speech is come in from the cold?
Come in from the cold is a verb.
How do you pronounce come in from the cold?
Come in from the cold is pronounced /ˈkʌm ˌɪn fɹəm ðə ˈkəʊ̯ld/ (UK).
What is the past tense of come in from the cold?
The past tense of come in from the cold is came in from the cold.

Words near come in from the cold in the dictionary

  1. come home
  2. come home by weeping cross
  3. come home to roost
  4. come in
  5. come in for
  6. come in from the cold
  7. come in handy
  8. come in hot
  9. come in use
  10. come in useful
  11. come into

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: come in from the cold (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-come in from the cold.ogg.

Cite this entry: “come in from the cold.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/come_in_from_the_cold. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.