cold-blooded

[kohld-bluhd-id]

adjective

1. designating or pertaining to animals, as fishes and reptiles, whose blood temperature ranges from the freezing point upward, in accordance with the temperature of the surrounding medium; poikilothermic.

2. without emotion or feeling; dispassionate; cruel.

   a cold-blooded murder.

3. sensitive to cold.

cold-blooded

adjective

1. having or showing a lack of feeling or pity

   a cold-blooded killing

2. informal,  particularly sensitive to cold

3. Technical term: poikilothermic. (of all animals except birds and mammals) having a body temperature that varies with that of the surroundings

cold-blooded

1. Having a body temperature that changes according to the temperature of the surroundings. Fish, amphibians, and reptiles are cold-blooded.

Other Word Forms

• cold-bloodedly adverb
• cold-bloodedness noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of cold-blooded¹

First recorded in 1585–95

Example Sentences

He said the Croatian journalist was trying to "present me as a monster, as an inhuman, as someone who not only has no emotions, but is a cold-blooded murderer".

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Attorney Bill Essayli called the killing “a cruel, cold-blooded act” in a news release Wednesday.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

And in helping Bertha, the children had caught the admiral’s eye, and now they, too, had become part of his cold-blooded moneymaking schemes.

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It was murder, cold-blooded murder because he didn't get his own way.

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Need I mention that a gecko is a cold-blooded lizard?

Read more on Salon

Related Words

• barbarous 
• brutal 
• callous 
• hardened 
• inhuman 
• merciless 
• ruthless