Word.ws English Dictionary

threw cold water on

threw cold water on is the simple past of throw cold water on.

Meaning of throw cold water on

Verb

throw cold water on (third-person singular simple present throws cold water on, present participle throwing cold water on, simple past threw cold water on, past participle thrown cold water on)

  1. (idiomatic, transitive) (of an achievement, emotion, idea, suggestion, etc.) To belittle or dismiss; to cast doubt upon; to debunk.
    • Oh! no; there would be a Mrs. Knightley to throw cold water on every thing.—Extremely disagreeable!1815 December 23, [Jane Austen], chapter XVII, in Emma: A Novel. In Three Volumes, volume III, London: Printed for John Murray, published 1816, →OCLC, page 329

Questions about threw cold water on

What is threw cold water on the simple past of?
Threw cold water on is the simple past of throw cold water on.

Words near threw cold water on in the dictionary

  1. threw away the key
  2. threw back
  3. threw BBs
  4. threw by
  5. threw caution to the wind
  6. threw cold water on
  7. threw down
  8. threw down the gauntlet
  9. threw dust in someone's eyes
  10. threw for a loop
  11. threw gas on the fire

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: threw cold water on (page history and authors); throw cold water on (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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