cold shower

Idioms

A surprisingly chilly reception, reaction, or response, as in The small voter turnout was a cold shower to the League of Women Voters. The allusion in this term is to the unexpected and not always pleasant effect of an ice-cold shower. [Second half of 1900s]

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.

“The question will not only be a cold shower for production of housing in Massachusetts, but it also is gonna hurt little people—people that are trying to build generational wealth,” said Greg Vasil, chief executive of the Greater Boston Real Estate Board.

From The Wall Street Journal

So a year or so on, he must feel the Civil Service has not yet been given the short sharp shock of an invigorating cold shower he thinks it needs.

From BBC

"Everybody received that email like a cold shower," he said.

From BBC

"He was very firm. It was a cold shower," one source shared.

From Salon

Ben Wood, chief analyst at CCS Insight, says generative AI will have a "cold shower" in 2024.

From BBC

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023