Word.ws English Dictionary

giving someone the cold shoulder

giving someone the cold shoulder is the present participle and gerund of give someone the cold shoulder.

Meaning of give someone the cold shoulder

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.

Questions about giving someone the cold shoulder

What is giving someone the cold shoulder the present participle and gerund of?
Giving someone the cold shoulder is the present participle and gerund of give someone the cold shoulder.

Words near giving someone the cold shoulder in the dictionary

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: giving someone the cold shoulder (page history and authors); give someone the cold shoulder (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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