cold fish

American  

noun

Informal.

1. a person who is very reserved or aloof in manner or who lacks normal cordiality, sympathy, or other feeling.

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cold fish British  

noun

1. an unemotional and unfriendly person

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cold fish Idioms  

1. A hard-hearted, unfeeling individual, one who shows no emotion, as in Not even the eulogy moved him; he's a real cold fish. This expression was used by Shakespeare in The Winter's Tale (4:4): “It was thought she was a woman, and was turn'd into a cold fish.” However, it came into wider use only in the first half of the 1900s.

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Etymology

Origin of cold fish

First recorded in 1940–45

Example Sentences

Episodes of the popular television series “The Crown” portrayed him as a cold fish, a cruel man, uncomfortable with himself.

From Washington Post

If being a cold fish is, as the cliché would have it, a British quality, then the series is very British indeed.

From New York Times

The buffet table included pickled salads, pâté, cold fish wraps and twarog — something like a white farmer cheese — most of which we also piled on our plates.

From Washington Post

A bowl of cold fish is almost mandatory.

From New York Times

She thinks he is a "cold fish," and wants to ask a younger woman — whom she has met through departmental social events only — to do her surgery.

From Washington Post

Related Words

• abstract
• candid
• detached
• disinterested
• sober
• unbiased
• unemotional