cold call

American  

noun

1. a visit or telephone call to a prospective customer without an appointment or a previous introduction.

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cold call British  

noun

1. a call made by a salesman on a potential customer without making an appointment

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verb

1. to call on (a potential customer) without making an appointment

Other Word Forms

• cold caller
  noun
• cold calling
  noun

Etymology

Origin of cold call

First recorded in 1980–85

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

cold call

So when The Cut writer Kathleen Walsh published an essay recently about feeling like she should be able to cold call her friends, it resonated with me deeply.

From Salon ● Sep. 30, 2026

“The only person I will cold call is my mom because I know she prefers it and will always answer the phone.”

From Salon ● Sep. 30, 2026

I'm going to run a little experiment, and people that I would normally shoot an email to with some ideas, I'm just going to cold call them.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 12, 2026

"It was a cold call but we received a very warm reception, and Donald Trump has a photograph of us all on his office wall."

From BBC ● Jan. 16, 2025

The company’s marketing manager, Rajesh Rao, told me that he had just made a cold call to the VP for engineering of a U.S. company, trying to drum up business.

From "The World Is Flat" by Thomas L. Friedman