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Cold shoulder   /koʊld ʃˈoʊldər/   Listen
Cold shoulder

noun
1.
A refusal to recognize someone you know.  Synonyms: cut, snub.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Cold shoulder" Quotes from Famous Books



... one ought to have of their attitudes, and no longer have reason to complain of suspicions that are found to be so well grounded." They come accordingly, "very humbly and very penitent." Nevertheless they meet with a rebuff, and a cold shoulder is turned on them; they are consigned to a corner of the room, or near the doors, and are openly insulted. Thus received, it is clear that they will keep quiet and not risk the slightest objection. At Macon "a few aristocrats ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... Lord! You'd think it was what was inside a man's head they'd be after, instead of the outside." He looked at Carroll. "Guess I've got a little the advantage of you in age," he said, "but I suppose that's the matter why you were given the cold shoulder." ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... of having perverted poor Lantier. "Men will be men," they said; "surely you can't expect them to turn a cold shoulder to women who throw themselves at their heads. She has no possible excuse; she is a disgrace to the ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola

... the young Irish girl who meant to make a great singer of herself, and who evidently looked upon the world as a place of rare and radiant entertainment? As for Mrs. Barsaloux, Marna's patron and benefactor, with her world-weary eyes and benevolent smile, who could turn a cold shoulder to her solicitudes? Then there were Wickersham and Von Shierbrand, members, like Fulham, of the faculty of the University. The Applegates and the Goodriches were pleasant folk, rather settled in their aspect, and all of literary leanings. The Applegates were identified—both ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie

... of French affairs. Indeed, he knew fully whereof he wrote, for, although in that summer of '89 the position of the United States in relation to Europe was anything but enviable, though we were deeply in debt and our credit almost gone, though England and Spain turned us the cold shoulder, though our enemies were diligently circulating damaging stories of the disunion, the bankruptcy, the agitation in American affairs, yet so friendly was the French government to us, so deep the personal respect and admiration for Mr. Jefferson as the representative of the infant ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe

... tables and most artistic vessels, and ending with the purchase of a penny pot which he carries home himself. He may then stroll along under the pictured and statued colonnades, perhaps offering the cold shoulder to various impecunious toadies who are there on the look-out for an invitation to dinner, perhaps succumbing to their blandishments. His lackeys are of course in attendance, and clients are still about him. In passing he is greeted by some person who is hanging officiously round ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker

... be in favor of Woman Suffrage, it was accepted by the Committee on Resolutions, and adopted with only a few dissenting votes. In view of the fact that the party has had a Suffrage plank since 1872, when it began to be, this does seem like a turning of the back rather than of the cold shoulder. When to its motto "No sectarianism in religion, no sectionalism in politics," the W. C. T. U. added "No sex in citizenship," it fastened itself to a principle that has not progressed. Its Temperance work "for God and home and native land" has gone on; but the political alliance and effort ...
— Woman and the Republic • Helen Kendrick Johnson

... master of the house, coming up to welcome his tenant's wife. Let the faults of the family be what they would, he could not but remember that their rent was well paid; he was therefore not willing to give them a cold shoulder. ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope

... that I took good care never to be overtaken in a similar situation again; never, never. Soon afterwards I saw that Julien was giving me the 'cold shoulder,' as they say. His wife was evidently undermining our friendship; by degrees he got rid of me, and we ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant

... lines for missing his grammar, I suppose." There was something in the tone which was especially offensive to Walter; for it sounded as if Kenrick wanted to show him the cold shoulder before his great friend, the head ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar

... is ultra-fashionable, and smokes whenever she chooses, and swears when ordinary language fails her—all of which things, of course, are anathema to the select circles of Monkshaven. But then she's a millionaire's widow, so instead of giving her the cold shoulder, every one gushes round her and declares 'Mrs. Maynard is such a thoroughly modern type, you know!'"—Molly mimicked the sugar-and-vinegar accents of the critics to perfection—"and privately Audrey shouts with laughter at them, while publicly she continues to shock them for the ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler

... with you. In all your seeking you are thinking only of yourself—how bad you've been and all that. I wouldn't think of myself and what I was any more, if I was you. You aint so awful bad, James, that I'd turn a cold shoulder to you; but you might think I was doing just that if ye stayed away from me and kept saying to yourself, 'I aint fit to speak ...
— He Fell in Love with His Wife • Edward P. Roe

... Charleston, had decided upon giving up the business and leaving South Carolina, and settling down as a land-owner in some other State. His antecedents, however, were soon known at Richmond, and the old Virginian families turned a cold shoulder to ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty

... would not indorse that, Fern," replied her mother, gently; "it is apt to turn a cold shoulder to genteel poverty. The hardest lot in life, in my opinion, is the life of a ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... what an honour!' kissing Eustacie's hand with all her might as she spoke; 'but, alas! I fear Madame cannot come into the house. The questing Brother Francois—plague upon him!—has taken it into his head to drop in to breakfast. I longed to give him the cold shoulder, but it might ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge

... wig? with many turnings of that reversible glass eye? the Squire managed to frighten Martha by the intimation that he had been threatened, and to make her understand, what it cost her much to understand, that she must turn the cold shoulder to chivalrous, awkward Bud, whom she loved most tenderly, partly, perhaps, because he did not remind her of anybody she had ever ...
— The Hoosier Schoolmaster - A Story of Backwoods Life in Indiana • Edward Eggleston

... "You don't know how mean some of those girls can be. Don't you remember the junior that was cut by her class last year? Of course, she did something for which she deserved to be cut, but the girls made her life miserable. The story went through every class, and she got the cold shoulder all around. She's not here this year. Her father sent her away to school, she was so unhappy. You remember her, don't you?" turning ...
— Grace Harlowe's Sophomore Year at High School • Jessie Graham Flower

... the only time of his showing me that he had any grudge against either Dr. Quinn or Jennett, and as was my business, I did my best to persuade him he was mistaken in them. Yet it could not be denied that some respectable families in the parish had given him the cold shoulder, and for no reason that they were willing to allege. The end was that he said he had not done so ill at Islington but that he could afford to live at ease elsewhere when he chose, and anyhow he bore Dr. Quinn no malice. I think I now ...
— A Thin Ghost and Others • M. R. (Montague Rhodes) James

... I to wait until they came to reconcile us, would we not by that time become perfect strangers? It would be better, supposing you wish to beat me or blow me up, that you should please yourself and do so now; but whatever you do, don't give me the cold shoulder!" ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin

... reputation and found that they were not so black as they had been painted. She learned how warm-hearted and charitable a woman could be for whom the world had a cold shoulder and no charity. ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes

... haven't we? And a row between you and Doreen, or between you and my father, wouldn't make any difference to me. I—I suppose you don't mean to give me the cold shoulder for ...
— The Wharf by the Docks - A Novel • Florence Warden

... Christian tradesman; he goes into the parlour of a third-rate inn of an evening, calls for rum-and-water, and attempts to enter into conversation with the company about politics and business. The company flout him or give him the cold shoulder, or perhaps complain to the landlord, who comes and asks him what business he has in the parlour, telling him if he wants to drink to go into the tap-room, and perhaps collars him and kicks him out, provided he refuses to move.' ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow

... you to avoid interfering in the private affairs of others, or you may find that you will receive the cold shoulder ...
— Telling Fortunes By Tea Leaves • Cicely Kent

... Ludlow had quite given Jim the cold shoulder; but now she smiled upon him again. Her sister had married very well; but Lily had quite resolved upon a rich husband. Still it would be something to have the young and good-looking collegian ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas

... process had been gone through was a little broken-down farmhouse called Venstoeb, in the outskirts of Skien. Ibsen afterwards stated that those who had taken most advantage of his parents' hospitality in their prosperous days were precisely those who now most markedly turned a cold shoulder on them. It is likely enough that this may have been the case, but one sees how inevitably Ibsen would, in after years, be convinced that it was. He believed himself to have been, personally, much mortified and humiliated in childhood by the change ...
— Henrik Ibsen • Edmund Gosse

... happened," we affirmed. "But every nook and cranny of our brain was so full of subjects that we simply could not give this a moment's consideration, and we see that all the other editors in New York were obliged to turn the cold shoulder to it, though they must have felt, as we did, that it was ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells

... his heart the words of his friend. He did not forget how Lundy had pressed upon his hearers the importance of petitioning Congress for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, as we shall see further on. But poor Lundy was unfortunate with the ministers. He got this time not the cold shoulder alone but a clerical slap in the face as well. He had just sat down when the pastor of the church, Rev. Howard Malcolm, uprose in wrath and inveighed against any intermeddling of the North with slavery, and brought the meeting with a high hand to a close. This incident was the first collision ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke



Words linked to "Cold shoulder" :   slight, rebuff, cold-shoulder



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