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stone-cold
stone-coldadjectivecompletely cold
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stone cold
stone coldUnfeeling, insensible, as in That sad story left her stone cold. This analogy was already used by Shakespeare in Henry V (2:3): “Cold as any stone.”
stone-cold
Britishadjective
adverb
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.
See Examples For:
Why lean into Curry’s “nice guy” off-court image when the man is a stone-cold killer on the court?
From Slate ● Nov. 15, 2025
This latest war of words adds to the pair's tumultuous feud, with Trump in 2019 calling the mayor "a stone-cold loser" and Sir Sadiq accusing him of stirring up far-right politics.
From BBC ● Sep. 18, 2025
Through that rigorous run, Tinsley evolved from a fresh-faced leader into a stone-cold ace, while Terry transformed from an untested freshman to a rising star.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 14, 2025
One way to view the meteoric growth of women’s college basketball is through the career arc of its current protagonist: Caitlin Clark, the University of Iowa’s stone-cold mad bomber.
From New York Times ● Apr. 2, 2024
There was half of a cold broiled lobster, five stone-cold fried oysters, an inch jar of caviar and a wedge of Roquefort cheese.
From "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" by Betty Smith
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Michael Jackson’s celebrity is so blinding, his music so compelling, that it cloaks him with an almost impenetrable shield from the truth: He was a stone cold pedophile.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 2, 2026
There was an ambivalent, if not stone cold, attitude towards the beefy Californian.
From BBC ● Sep. 25, 2025
“To be 21 years old coming in and be stone cold at the plate - I’ve never seen someone come up here and not chase pitches around the zone.”
From Washington Times ● Oct. 8, 2023
Columnist Peggy Noonan wrote that Santos was "a stone cold liar who effectively committed election fraud."
From Salon ● Feb. 1, 2023
Red-faced but with his jaw set and his eyes stone cold, he quickly fumbled the guitar back into its case and retreated to another coach.
From "The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics" by Daniel James Brown
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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.