chilling
Americanadjective
Etymology
Origin of chilling
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Having it look exactly like things that then happened on the news, that was chilling.
From Los Angeles Times • May 6, 2026
In an essay last Thursday in Stars and Stripes, Smith described being fired in terms that were impersonal, precise and chilling.
From Salon • May 3, 2026
The fine was issued by the Office for Students, the regulator of England's universities, over the university's trans and non-binary inclusion policy which it said had a "chilling" effect on free speech.
From BBC • Apr. 29, 2026
These images are no mere jeremiads but chilling depictions of suffering—both mental and physical—that bring to mind the most haunting works of Otto Dix, Max Beckmann and Käthe Kollwitz.
From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 10, 2026
This painful ritual went on week after week, until “at last the frosts and storms of November came and threw a chilling barrier between the living and the dead, and we went there no more.”
From "Votes for Women!" by Winifred Conkling
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
