Word.ws English Dictionary

give someone the cold shoulder

give someone the cold shoulder verb: to snub, resist or reject somebody; to regard somebody distantly.

Verb

give someone the cold shoulder (third-person singular simple present gives someone the cold shoulder, present participle giving someone the cold shoulder, simple past gave someone the cold shoulder, past participle given someone the cold shoulder)

  1. (idiomatic) To snub, resist or reject somebody; to regard somebody distantly.
    • I must have made him angry with my comment. He’s been giving me the cold shoulder ever since I said it.
    • The Pope had given him the cold shoulder, but since he had not prospered as a diplomatist, he had sought compensation as a man of the world, and his great flamboyant curricle and negro lackeys were for several weeks one of the striking ornaments of the Pincian.1875 January–December, Henry James, Jr., Roderick Hudson, Boston, Mass.: James R[ipley] Osgood and Company, late Ticknor & Fields, and Fields, Osgood, & Co., published 1876, →OCLC; republished as...

give someone the cold shoulder meaning in Malayalam

give someone the cold shoulder in Malayalam

snub, shun, cold-shoulder
സൗഹൃദം ഭാവിക്കാതിരിക്കുക, തണുപ്പൻ പ്രതികരണം നല്കുക, അവഗണന കാണിക്കുക, കരുതിക്കൂട്ടി അവഗണന കാട്ടുക, വെറുപ്പു പ്രദർശിപ്പിക്കുക, അലക്ഷ്യമാക്കുക

Forms of give someone the cold shoulder

third-person singular presentgives someone the cold shoulder
present participlegiving someone the cold shoulder
pastgave someone the cold shoulder
past participlegiven someone the cold shoulder
alternative formturn the cold shoulder on someone
alternative formturn a cold shoulder on someone

Origin of give someone the cold shoulder

First recorded use of the expression was in 1816 by Sir Walter Scott in Scots (“The Countess’s dislike didna gang farther at first than just showing o’ the cauld shouther”.)

Questions about give someone the cold shoulder

What does give someone the cold shoulder mean?
Give someone the cold shoulder means to snub, resist or reject somebody; to regard somebody distantly.
What is give someone the cold shoulder in Malayalam?
Give someone the cold shoulder in Malayalam is സൗഹൃദം ഭാവിക്കാതിരിക്കുക, തണുപ്പൻ പ്രതികരണം നല്കുക, അവഗണന കാണിക്കുക. See Give someone the cold shoulder meaning in Malayalam.
What part of speech is give someone the cold shoulder?
Give someone the cold shoulder is a verb.
What is the past tense of give someone the cold shoulder?
The past tense of give someone the cold shoulder is gave someone the cold shoulder.

Words near give someone the cold shoulder in the dictionary

  1. give someone the bag
  2. give someone the boot
  3. give someone the brush-off
  4. give someone the business
  5. give someone the chair
  6. give someone the cold shoulder
  7. give someone the creeps
  8. give someone the eye
  9. give someone the gears
  10. give someone the heave-ho
  11. give someone the lie in their throat

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: give someone the cold shoulder (page history and authors); give someone the cold shoulder (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license). 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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-give someone the cold shoulder.ogg.

Cite this entry: “give someone the cold shoulder.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/give_someone_the_cold_shoulder. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.