Word.ws English Dictionary

throwing cold water on

throwing cold water on is the present participle and gerund 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 throwing cold water on

What is throwing cold water on the present participle and gerund of?
Throwing cold water on is the present participle and gerund of throw cold water on.

Words near throwing cold water on in the dictionary

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: throwing 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.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “throwing cold water on.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/throwing_cold_water_on. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.