Green’s Dictionary of Slang

see sense 12 above.

(US Und.) a wallet without any money in it; thus a confidence game based on such an empty wallet.

1926		‘Und. and Its Vernacular’ in Clues mag. 158–62: cold poke. Empty or worthless pocketbook.
1940		D. Maurer Big Con 292: The cold poke. A mock-con game played on gun-molls for a joke. A young grifter points out an old grifter as a wealthy old gentleman, and connives with the girl to steal his wallet. Meanwhile the old man has substituted for his full wallet one filled with paper and often garnished with ribald verses. Just as the girl slips out of the night club with the wallet, the old man ‘beefs gun’ and a hue and cry is raised.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn) 54: cold poke A wallet with no money in it.

1. unnecessary and aggressive behaviour.

1971		E.E. Landy Underground Dict. (1972).
1980		E. Folb Runnin’ Down Some Lines 233: cold shot Uncalled for or belligerent behavior.

2. cruel, emotionless behaviour.

1958

E. Gilbert Vice Trap 75: She used to be ass deep in codein and bennies every time she came back from his giving her [...] a cold shot.

3. an unpleasant surprise.

1963		M. Braly Shake Him Till He Rattles (1964) 87: ‘This is a cold shot,’ he told Bear, and Bear shook his head gloomily.
1972		O. Hawkins Ghetto Sketches 57: That sho’ musta been a cold shot for her t’ find her T.V. gone.
1978		H. Selby Jr Requiem for a Dream (1987) 160: Harry and Tyrone were hit with a cold shot [...] Brody couldn’t score any uncut weight.

a phr. suggesting someone is innocent of a police charge.

1967		‘Whisper All Aussie Dict.’ in Kings Cross Whisper (Sydney) xxxiii 4/4: cold as a maggot: An expression used when describing how innocent one is of police charges.
1983		R. Aven-Bray Ridgey-Didge Oz Jack Lang 23: Cold as a Maggot Innocent of police charge.

(US black) without money, penniless.

1925		B. Smith [song title] Cold in Hand Blues.
1934		Lucille Bogan ‘Drinking Blues’ 🎵 Don’t a woman look real funny, when she wakes up cold in hand, / and the broad ain’t got a dollar to give the house-rent man.
1942		Z.N. Hurston ‘Story in Harlem Sl.’ in Novels and Stories (1995) 1002: ‘Cold in hand, hunh?’ He talked down to Jelly.
1959		Ebony 149/3: The mournful plight of a man gone cold in hand.
1960, 1975		Wentworth & Flexner DAS.

(Aus.) in prison.

1941

Baker Popular Dict. Aus. Sl.

(US) rather good.

1897

Ade Pink Marsh (1963) 165: Gawge Dixon’s [a] puhty warm boy, an’ ’at Miasteh Joe Woolcott ain’t so cold.

see cold potato n.¹

a liquor store or ‘off licence’ that can sell beer but cannot have it drunk on the premises.

1860		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc. (2nd edn).
1864, 1867, 1870		Hotten Sl. Dict.
1873		Sl. Dict.

(US) honest, open, candid.

a.1962

‘Answer to the Letter’ in D. Wepman et al. Life (1976) 145: You couldn’t pull a fast one on a cold-blooded lame.

see cold fish

(US black/L.A.) a very bad situation; a serious scolding.

1980

E. Folb Runnin’ Down Some Lines 233: cold case 1. Bad situation. 2. Particularly strong rebuke.

(W.I.) cold food, which is hard to swallow.

1877, 1959

cited in Cassidy & LePage Dict. Jam. Eng. (1980).

see cold meat n. (1)

1. bad luck.

1853		Bell’s Life in Sydney 10 Dec. 2/6: Thomas was placed before their worships yesterday for the matutinal meal , and after receiving some — cold coffee was roll-ed over till next Tuesday.
1864, 1867, 1870		Hotten Sl. Dict.
1873		Sl. Dict.
1882		Sydney Sl. Dict. (2 edn) 2: Cold Coffee - Misfortune. Unpleasant return for proffered service. Sometimes, A sell.

2. a snub.

1873		Sl. Dict.
1895		Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 18: Cold Coffee or Cold Gruel, an ungrateful return for a kindness.

3. beer [the colour + ? euph.].

1909

J. Ware Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era.

(Aus.) an undertaker.

1895

Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 14: Cold Cook, an undertaker.

(Aus.) Great Britain.

1906		Bulletin (Sydney) 24 May 15/3: He could tell on sight whether any man he met came from Queensland, N.S. Wales, Victoria, Tasmania, or the Cold Country.
1912		Bulletin (Sydney) 25 July 10/4: King John tried it in the Cold Country several centuries ago.
1918		Bulletin (Sydney) 5 May 15/8: The Cold Country clinahs, who are wofully ignorant of Australian affairs.
1936		Bulletin (Sydney) 1 Jan. 19/4: In the Cold Country a bird is hung by the tail-feathers until it drops.

gin.

1859

Punch Almanack 63: Cold Cream Internally. Cold cream is an excellent remedy for hot coppers. It is much resorted to by young ladies during the London season.

(lesbian) to ignore, to brush off.

1982

Maledicta VI:1+2 (Summer/Winter) 134: Trying to investigate lesbian lingo, I have encountered some politically motivated hostility; even my female helpers if detected as not sympatica have been cold-cunted and brushed off.

see separate entries.

see separate entries.

(Aus.) to ask a stranger for money.

1967

‘Whisper All Aussie Dict.’ in Kings Cross Whisper (Sydney) xxxiii 4/4: cold fang: To ask strangers for money.

a pickpocket, esp. one who steals from coatrooms and cloakrooms.

1996

(con. 1949) G. Pelecanos Big Blowdown (1999) 151: He was [...] a cold-finger man and gamer who had done a stretch for hitting the coatroom at the Shoreham during a high-society wedding reception in ’46. Buchner had been going through unattended coats and purses for fifteen years before he was caught.

an unemotional person; also as v., to be sexually unresponsive.

1912		Pittsburgh Post-Gaz. (PA) 27 Oct. 3/1: In short, he is the professional type. Or, in other language, he is a cold fish.
[1929		M. Levin Reporter 249: ‘Denies it cold as a fish,’ phoned the reporter].
1930		N. Lindsay Redheap (1965) 196: ‘He looks to me like one of the cold-fish brigade’.
1931		B. Lubbock Bully Hayes 169: He was a cold-blooded fish and no mistake!
1936		J.T. Farrell World I Never Made 259: Margaret [...] anxiously thinking to herself how she might worm something out of this cold fish.
1942		R. Chandler High Window 136: ‘You’re a callous brute,’ she said. ‘You’re a cold-blooded fish. I don’t like you. I deeply regret ever having met you’.
1945		‘Henry Green’ Loving (1978) 169: My God that man’s a cold fish.
1948		(con. 1944) N. Mailer Naked and Dead 331: He’s like a cold fish, and there’s just no life in him.
1953		J. Thompson Alcoholics (1993) 38: They struck him as being pretty cold fish.
1966		P. White Solid Mandala (1976) 124: You’re the coldest fish I’ll ever hope to meet.
1970		E. Thompson Garden of Sand (1981) 134: I came to fuck, kiddo. No bitch cold-fishes on Dave Hill!
1978		R. De Christoforo Grease 96: She’s a cold fish.
1989		H. Rawson Dict. of Invective (1991) 91: cold fish. An unemotional, unresponsive, unfriendly person.
1992		D. Burke Street Talk 2 94: She’s a sort of cold fish.

1. (mainly Aus.) a timid, nervous person (usu. in context of military service); thus cold-footed, timid, cowardly.

1910		Adelaide Advertiser 12 Sept. 11/1: The proportion of men who go away after one week’s training [...] is diminishing, and that the ‘fed-ups’ and ‘cold-footers’ are a disappearing quantity.
1911		Senate Docs vol. 5888 529: Several men were joking one another about how cold footed and scared they were to go downstairs and [...] that the first sergeant couldn't get them out in line.
1913		J. London Valley of the Moon (1914) 42: Come on an’ kick in, you cold-feets. Get together.
1915		C.E.W. Bean Anzac Book 102/1: [H]e was generally considered [...] to be a ‘cold-foot,’ and his nickname was appropriately ‘Icy.’ [...] [W]henever ‘Beachy Bill’ came screeching overhead he would involuntarily duck. [Ibid.] 108/1: If Jessie could see me now, would she turn me down for some cold-footed, well-groomed fellow? I don’t think. She’s all right, and would understand it’s no gipsy tea we’re at.
1915		W. Gippsland Gaz. (Vic.) 14 Dec. 3/5: Before he has done answering questions as to why he should not be sent to the war, the ‘cold-footer’ will have a headache.
1917		Register (Adelaide) 18 Jan. 6/5: Later on a storm of boo-hooing and apoplajuse greeted an interjection of, ‘Why are you not at the front?’ Mr Anstey — I’ll tell you why. A Voice— You cold footer.
1920–23		in J.M. Hunter Trail Drivers of Texas (1963) I 473: Two of my men stayed with me, and the third, a ‘cold-footer,’ crossed on the bridge.
1928		Advertiser (Adelaide) 1 Sept. 17/3: I wish to state that I am a single man and that I served in the last war [...] I am not a ‘cold-footer’.
1938		Western Mail (Perth) 1 Sept. 2/1: The Cold-Footer [...] Thin, narrow-chested and round-shouldered George had about as much sex appeal as a cucumber.
1944		Courier-Mail (Brisbane) 27 Oct. 2/3: To label a man a ‘cold-footer’ for doing what he was instructed to do was unjust.
1950		F.J. Hardy Power without Glory 255: ‘You be quiet, you cold-footer,’ an old !ady remarked patriotically.
1984		D. Beaty Strange Encounters 86: 'Do you [...] think there is any likelihood of a pilot in very adverse conditions taking off in spite of them, on the belief that if he didn't, he might be regarded as a ‘cold-footer’?

2. in attrib. use of sense 1.

1917

Registrar (Adelaide) 29 Sept. 7/9: I hope this goes to one of the brave boys in France, and not the cold-footer waster in Egypt.

the cheapest variety of beer.

1909

J. Ware Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era 84/2: Cold Four (Public-house). One of the more opprobrious terms for the cheapest description of beer. The cold does not refer to the low temperature of four-ale, or four ’arf-an-’arf, but to its fatal want of warmthful generosity.

(Aus.) a can of beer.

[1977		Canberra Times (ACT) 5 May 16/4: With his large can of Tooth’s Cold Gold KB].
1982		Sun-Herald (Sydney) 5 Dec. 87: Typical was one mother’s reaction as ‘cold gold’ in hand, she fiercely instructed her freckle-faced little monster to ‘keep jumping up and down in front, so that nanna will see you on the telly’ [GAW4].
1985		Bulletin 14 May 32: They’d empty the joint quick as the first cold gold at the butcher’s picnic.

1. bad luck.

1864, 1867, 1870

Hotten Sl. Dict.

2. a snub.

1864, 1867, 1870		Hotten Sl. Dict.
1895		Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 18: Cold Gruel, an ungrateful return for a kindness.

see Fenian n.

a sword.

1696		Motteux (trans.) Gargantua and Pantagruel (1927) II Bk V 557: I will prove it to your brazen faces [...] I mean this trusty piece of cold iron by my side. With this he lugged it out and flourished with it.
1725		New Canting Dict.
1737, 1759, 1760, 1776		Bailey Universal Etym. Eng. Dict.
c.1786		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue ms. additions n.p.: Cold Iron, a Sword or any other Weapon see Hudibrass, I put two Inches of Cold Iron into his Beef.
1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue (3rd edn) n.p.: Cold Iron. A sword, or any other weapon for cutting or stabbing. I gave him two inches of cold iron into his beef.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.

see separate entry.

see under mitt n.

anything mediocre, second-rate.

1878

‘’Arry at the Play’ in Punch 2 Nov. in P. Marks (2006) 39: I though the theayter cold muffin.

see cold meat n. (1)

brandy.

1700

T. Brown Amusements Serious and Comical in Works (1744) III 110: Not to exceed the debauch of a pennyworth of cold Nantz.

see separate entries.

1. (Aus.) an easy victim.

1900		Bulletin (Sydney) 17 Mar. 24/2: Saw [...] Jack Tuckwell shape [...] on Saturday night, and am satisfied that, given anything like good condition, the nigger would be cold-pie for the white.
1900		Bulletin (Sydney) 7 Apr. 24/1: Patterson proved cold pie for the bantam premier in the next term, and was sent sleeping by a clinking right on the point.

2. see choking pie n.

1. a punishment or joke in which the bedclothes are stripped off a sleeper or cold water is poured over them; usu. in phr. give cold pig.

1731		Gent’s Mag. Sept. 400/1: One Nap, dear Girls is all I beg. / — A Nap! Su, give him some cold Pig. / Come, come, says John, don’t play the fool.
1784		Rambler’s Mag. Jan. 36/1: For law, and for ev’ry queer rig, / I care not, believe me, a pin; / No more than I do for cold pig, / So give me a glass of good Gin.
c.1786		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue ms. additions n.p.: Cold Pig To give Cold pig is a punishment inflicted on Sluggards who lye too long in bed; it consists in pulling off all the bed Cloaths from them, & exposing them naked to the cold.
1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue (3rd edn) n.p.: Cold pig; a jocular punishment inflicted by the maid servants, or other females of the house, on persons lying over long in bed: it consists in pulling off all the bed clothes, and leaving them to pig or lie in the cold.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum [as cit. 1796].
1818		J.R. Planché Amoroso, King of Little Britain 6: As sure as fate and quarter day, cold pig will be your fare.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1831		Navy at Home I 91: Nor were his slumbers unbroken by the horrid visions of wet swabs, cuttings down, cold pig, and capsizes.
1831		Navy at Home I 119: Hardly a week passed without some deadly complaint of being cut down — or a cold bath — familiarly denominated cold pig.
1838		R. Nicholson Cockney Adventures 20 Jan. 94: ‘Give ’em some cold pig,’ said a laughing lad.
1846		Thackeray Diary of C. Jeames de la Pluche in Works III (1898) 421: What was it that made me spring outabed as if sumbady had given me cold pig?
1851		Northampton Mercury 26 July 2/3: Her mistress had [...] found her in bed rather late, and had given her what schoolboys call ‘cold pig’.
1869		W. Bradwood O.V.H. (1877) 413: Then he came back rosy and hungry, and revenged himself by an administration of cold pig to the still slumbering Ralph.
1873		‘Cuthbert Bede’ Little Mr. Bouncer 88: If you don’t get up at once, I shall give you cold pig.
1887		Dly Gaz. for Middlesborough 7 Nov. 4/2: The Bishop thought he caught the words ‘Cold Pig;’ then more giggling [...] In an instant the pillow, the bedclothes and the Bishop were drenched with cold water.
1898		Regiment 2 Apr. 10/1: ‘Cold pigging’ consisted in pouring water on the victim’s bed clothing, or dousing him with the contents of a wet sponge whilst dressing.

2. (US Und.) one who has been robbed of their clothes.

1859		Matsell Vocabulum.
1881		Trumble Sl. Dict. (1890).

(Aus./N.Z.) hawking goods from door to door.

[1900		Mercury (Hobart, Tas.) 31 Mar. 1/1: [advert] COLD PIG [...] is a conventional term, used by the rag trade in England to denote parcels of goods cast unexpectedly on the makers’ hands, and there was enough ‘Cold Pig’ in the shape of flannelettes there and then present to satisfy the veriest glutton at the business].
1945		Baker Aus. Lang.
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. 50: cold pigging Selling goods door-to-door.

see separate entry.

(US Und.) breaking into a house while its owners are absent.

1926

‘Und. and Its Vernacular’ in Clues mag. 158–62: cold prowl. Ransacking a house while the occupants are away.

anything considered worthless, second-rate.

c.1786		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue ms. additions n.p.: Cold Pudding. This is said to settle ones Love.
1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue (2nd, 3rd edn).
1811		Lex. Balatronicum [as cit. 1786].
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1851		Manchester Spy (NH) 5 Apr. n.p.: Wants [...] To know the price of cold pudding.
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 17 Jan. 12/2: But the Standard considers that the ‘whole entertainment seems to gratify those to whom it appeals’ – which is, on the whole, ‘cold pudding.’.

see cold one n.²

(drugs) of withdrawal from heroin addiction, sudden and total without tapering off or using any assistance from medication.

1963

M. Braly Shake Him Till He Rattles 97: ‘What they got you for?’ ‘Possession.’ ‘Stuff?’ ‘No, just pot.’ ... ‘That still do it. They got you cold quack?’ ‘Cold enough.’ .

see under scran n.

see under shake n.¹

(US) small off-cuts of material, taken from the job in hand and sold off as perks by tailors.

1890–1904

Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.

(Aus.) a disparaging ref. to an individual; inference is a lack of human warmth.

1974

‘Ricki Francis’ Kings X Hooker 7: ‘She’s a fine woman,’ Martin interrupted. ‘She’s cold snot, boy, like her daughter’.

(Aus. drugs/prison) a hypodermic syringe.

1990

Tupper & Wortley Aus. Prison Sl. Gloss. 🌐 Cold steel. Syringe.

see separate entries.

1. hard liquor, e.g. brandy, whisky.

1693		Humble Remonstrance of the Batchelors in Harleian Misc. IV (1809) 505: Their sex has been so familiar with brandy (blasphemed by the name of cold tea).
1725		New Canting Dict.
1737, 1759, 1760, 1776		Bailey Universal Etym. Eng. Dict.
1884		McCook Wkly Trib. (NE) 5 June 8/2: The truly good men in the Senate concluded to abolish [...] the dispensing of ‘cold tea’ in the basement of the capitol. Frye declared that the whole capitol had become a veritable gin-mill.
1886		Hartlepool Mail 19 Oct. 4/6: Don’t you know, my man, that when a gentleman orders ‘cold tea’ he means whiskey?
1888		(ref. to 18C) C.J. Dunphie Chameleon 235: It is worthy of remark that cold tea was a slang name for Brandy in the 18th century [F&H].
1890		Pittsburgh Dispatch (OK) 26 July 9/2: The colored waiter who takes your order will turn to the white man behind the bar and call out ‘one cold tea with selzer on the side’.
1903		Sun. Times (Perth) 26 July 1/2: [heasdline] A Shypoo Shop. Sly-Grog and Cold Tea.
1908		Morn. Bulletin (Rockhampton, Qld) 7 Feb. 4/5: In that land of the sly-grog sellers [...] they were after a man who sold cold tea at half-a-sovereign a bottle.
1919		Aberdeen Jrnl 9 July 6/2: ‘Name it,’ said the resident. ‘Whisky,’ replied the traveller. [...] ‘Not on your life,’ remarked the bar-tender. ‘Cold tea,’ said the resident. [...] The bar-tender [...] filled two glasses with an amber-coloured liquid.

2. (US) beer.

1907

Carr & Chase ‘Word-List From Eastern Maine’ in DN III:iii 242: cold tea, n. Beer.

3. see cold water

see separate entries.

1. a generic term for teetotalism, abstinence; usu. attrib.; thus cold water army, the teetotal movement.

1830		Cong. Deb. 25 Feb. 584/1: It may be expedient to make our sailors cold water drinkers [=temperance men] [DA].
1845		Ypsilanti Sentinel (Wastenaw Co., MI) 10 Sept. 2/5: A rum-sucker declared tat he could beat any cold water fellow in jumping.
1848		W.E. Burton Waggeries and Vagaries 19: You oughter be the commodore of all them cold water clubs, and perpetual president of all temp’rance teetotallers.
1857		Paul Pry (London) 15 Aug. n.p.: On Friday evening next [...] at the Temperance-hall, Fair-street, some of the worst specimens of cold water consumers ever seen in the metropolis.
1880		Bulletin (Sydney) 1 May 4/2: Mr. Marcus, who was elected head of the South Australian Good Templars in 1879, is now ‘boss’ of the Good Templars of N.S.W. [...] When the cafe-keepers saw the cold water King in the reporters’ box, the blood froze in their veins.
1880		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 3 Jan. 14/3: [headline] THE TEMPERANCE CROAKERS [...] [T]otal abstinence papers may shriek annually in cold water articles [etc].
1890		Bulletin (Sydney) 2 Aug. 21/3: Among the present Queensland Ministry are two strict cold-water men.
1900		Bulletin (Sydney) 1 Sept. 20/1: Teetotalism is having a bad time at N.S.W. bye-elections. Cold-tea candidates went under in Philip-division, Bathurst and Canturbury.
1901		W.A. Sun. Times (Perth) 27 Oct. 1/1: Cold-water Wade’s anxiety is more for their souls than for their poor, worn-out bodies.
1906		Springfield (MA) Weekly Republican 16 Aug. 1: Another [case in point] comes in the action of the prohibition state executive committee in Pennsylvania [...] The coldwater convention there nominated William H. Berry [DA].
1914		Truth (Melbourne) 3 Jan. 4/6: The revered gentleman is back up by a coterie of cold-water caterwaulers.

2. a generic term for temperance campaigners.

1841		Stamford Mercury 30 July 2/5: [You] who have dared to shiver a lance in the defence of Alcohol, have all been worsted in the conflict with the cold-water men.
1905		Sun. Times (Perth) 13 Aug. 1/1: A Committee of Cold Tea tendencies analysed the culprit’s breath.
1914		Bulletin (Sydney) 23 July 10/2: Bung and Cold Tea have been fighting one another over every little point either of them could think of; and just when Cold Tea’s whiskers were uppermost, Bung, with his shoulders all but on the carpet, got in a useful twist which reversed the positions.

see separate entry.

see separate entry.

see separate entry.

see under blue n.¹

(W.I.) to not be on speaking terms with.

1996

Allsopp Dict. Carib. Eng. Usage.

(orig. US) to have at one’s mercy, to have at a disadvantage.

1890–1904

Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.

(Aus.) to scold, to blame, to reprimand.

1941		Baker Popular Dict. Aus. Sl.
1955		N. Pulliam I Travelled a Lonely Land (1957) 233/2: go cold – tell off.