someone's blood runs cold
English
[edit]Pronunciation
[edit]Audio (General Australian): (file)
Phrase
[edit]- (literal) One feels a physical shock upon realizing a direct threat to one's life, similar to the loss of blood in the brain. It affects the entire body for a few minutes, but does not cause the person to lose consciousness.
- (idiomatic) One experiences a visceral feeling of fear, horror, dread, or strong foreboding.
- 1838, Charles Dickens, chapter 18, in Oliver Twist:
- Little Oliver's blood ran cold, as he listened to the Jew's words, and imperfectly comprehended the dark threats conveyed in them.
- 1891, H. Rider Haggard, chapter 13, in Nada the Lily:
- [M]y blood ran cold and my heart turned to water, for there, before the cave, rolled wolves, many and great.
- 1908, W. Somerset Maugham, chapter 9, in The Magician:
- Her blood ran cold, and her heart seemed pressed in an iron vice.
- 2004 January 12, Jeffrey Ressner, “Sundances with Wolves”, in Time[1], archived from the original on 30 June 2013:
- His "blood runs cold" imagining the wrath of Weinstein.
- 1838, Boz [pseudonym; Charles Dickens], chapter 20, in Oliver Twist; or, The Parish Boy’s Progress. […], volume (please specify |volume=I, II, or III), London: Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC:
- Here, he read of dreadful crimes that made the blood run cold.
- 1897, W[illiam] Somerset Maugham, chapter 7, in Liza of Lambeth, New York, N.Y.: George H[enry] Doran Company, published [1921], →OCLC:
- "Why, it mikes yer blood run cold: they 'ang a man on the stige; oh, it mide me creep all over!"
- 1914, Lucy Maud Montgomery, The Man on the Train:
- "It just makes my blood run cold to read about it. And to think that the man who did it is still around the country somewhere—plotting other murders."
- 2009 February 24, John Otis, “Colombia's Drug Extraditions: Are They Worth It?”, in Time:
- [T]he prospect of doing hard time in an American penitentiary was about the only thing that made Pablo Escobar's blood run cold.
Translations
[edit]One experiences a visceral feeling of fear, horror, dread, or strong forboding
|