Word.ws English Dictionary

in cold blood

in cold blood prepositional phrase: in a ruthless and unfeeling manner, particularly as applied to first-degree murder committed without provocation and with malice aforethought.

Prepositional phrase

  1. (idiomatic) In a ruthless and unfeeling manner, particularly as applied to first-degree murder committed without provocation and with malice aforethought.
    • It was not a suicide! He was murdered in cold blood.
    • Police have arrested a suspect in the murder-robbery of a gold shop in Lop Buri two weeks ago, in which a young child and two adults were killed in cold blood.2020 January 22, “Suspect in Lop Buri gold robbery-murders arrested”, in Bangkok Post, Bangkok: Bangkok Post Public Company Limited, retrieved 22 Jan 2020

in cold blood meaning in Arabic and Indonesian

in cold blood in Arabic

in a ruthless and unfeeling manner
بِدَم بَارِد bi-dam bārid

in cold blood in Indonesian

in a ruthless and unfeeling manner
berdarah dingin

Origin of in cold blood

From a specialized meaning of cold, referring to lack of empathy.

Questions about in cold blood

What does in cold blood mean?
In cold blood means in a ruthless and unfeeling manner, particularly as applied to first-degree murder committed without provocation and with malice aforethought.
What is in cold blood in Arabic?
In cold blood in Arabic is بِدَم بَارِد (bi-dam bārid). See In cold blood meaning in Arabic.
What part of speech is in cold blood?
In cold blood is a prepositional phrase.

Words near in cold blood in the dictionary

  1. in circulation
  2. in close neighborhood
  3. in close neighbourhood
  4. in clover
  5. in cohorts
  6. in cold blood
  7. in collar
  8. in color
  9. in colour
  10. in command
  11. in common

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: in cold blood (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-in cold blood.ogg.

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