cold comfort

American  

noun

1. slight or negligible comfort; scarce consolation.

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cold comfort Idioms  

1. Slight or no consolation. For example, He can't lend us his canoe but will tell us where to rent one—that's cold comfort. The adjective cold was being applied to comfort in this sense by the early 1300s, and Shakespeare used the idiom numerous times.

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Etymology

Origin of cold comfort

First recorded in 1565–75

Example Sentences

“Who remembers the cold comfort of that open hearth before we built a new school with its patented front-loader chunk stove with isinglass winders?”

From Literature

But it also quite consciously plays to the baser side of us that takes cold comfort, even joy, at the miseries of the hyperwealthy.

From Salon

This may come as cold comfort for hundreds now facing unemployment, and their legion of investors.

From BBC

That’s cold comfort to investors who see stocks and valuations falling faster than snow in New York City today.

From Barron's

But that is cold comfort for the nearly 55 percent of individual Vietnamese crypto investors who according to one market analysis reported losses last year.

From Barron's