cold comfort

cold com·fort

C c

Transcription

- US Pronunciation
- US IPA
- UK Pronunciation
- UK IPA
- [kohld kuhm-fert]
- /koʊld ˈkʌm fərt/
- /kəʊld ˈkʌmfət/

- US Pronunciation
- US IPA
- [kohld kuhm-fert]
- /koʊld ˈkʌm fərt/

Definitions of cold comfort words

uncountable noun cold comfort If you say that a slightly encouraging fact or event is cold comfort to someone, you mean that it gives them little or no comfort because their situation is so difficult or unpleasant. 3
noun cold comfort little or no comfort 3
noun cold comfort little or minimal consolation 3
noun cold comfort little or no comfort at all 3
noun cold comfort slight or negligible comfort; scarce consolation. 1
noun cold comfort small, ineffective consolation 1

See all 7 definitions of cold comfort

Information block about the term

Origin of cold comfort

First appearance:

before 1565

One of the 32% oldest English words

First recorded in 1565-75

Historical Comparancy

Parts of speech for Cold comfort

noun

adjective

verb

adverb

pronoun

preposition

conjunction

determiner

exclamation

Full grammatical hierarchy of Cold comfort

cold comfort popularity

A pretty common term. Usually people know it’s meaning, but prefer to use a more spread out synonym. About 34% of English native speakers know the meaning and use word.

According to our data most of word are more popular. This word is almost not used. It has a much more popular synonym.

cold comfort usage trend in Literature

This diagram is provided by Google Ngram Viewer