cold
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
4 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "cold", 4-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "cold" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "cold" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
cold is anEnglishadj. It means: Having a low temperature. Pronounced /kəʊld/. It ranks #1,013 in English word frequency. Often confused with cop and con.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | cold |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adj |
| IPA | /kəʊld/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #1,013 |
| Misspellings tracked | 6 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for cold is 4 letters long, classified as anadj, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /kəʊld/. Corpus data places it at rank #1,013 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 22 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 6 documented wrong-spelling variants for cold, with forms such as "ccold", "clod", and "codl". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "cop", "con", "cow", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English cold, from Anglian Old English cald. The West Saxon form, ċeald (“cold”), survived as early Middle English cheald, cheld, or chald. Both descended from Proto-West Germanic *kald, from Proto-Germanic *kaldaz, a participle form of *kalaną … Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is cold, spelled C-O-L-D, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1Having a low temperature.
- 2Causing the air to be cold.
- 3Feeling the sensation of coldness, especially to the point of discomfort.
- 4Unfriendly; emotionally distant or unfeeling.
- 5Chilled, filled with an uncomfortable sense of fear, dread, or alarm.
- 6Dispassionate; not prejudiced or partisan; impartial.
- 7Completely unprepared; without introduction.
- 8Unconscious or deeply asleep; deprived of the metaphorical heat associated with life or consciousness.
- 9Perfectly, exactly, completely; by heart; down pat.
- 10Cornered; done for.
- 11Cool, impressive.
- 12Not pungent or acrid.
- 13Unexciting; dull; uninteresting.
- 14Affecting the sense of smell (as of hunting dogs) only feebly; having lost its odour.
- 15Not sensitive; not acute.
- 16Distant; said, in the game of hunting for some object, of a seeker remote from the thing concealed. Compare warm and hot.
- 17Having a bluish effect; not warm in colour.
- 18Rarely used or accessed, and thus able to be relegated to slower storage.
- 19Without compassion; heartless; ruthless.
- 20Not radioactive.
- 21Not loaded with a round of live ammunition.
- 22Without electrical power being supplied.
Etymology
From Middle English cold, from Anglian Old English cald. The West Saxon form, ċeald (“cold”), survived as early Middle English cheald, cheld, or chald. Both descended from Proto-West Germanic *kald, from Proto-Germanic *kaldaz, a participle form of *kalaną (“to be cold”), from Proto-Indo-European *gel- (“cold”). Cognates Cognate with Scots cald, cauld (“cold”), Saterland Frisian koold (“cold”), West Frisian kâld (“cold”), Dutch koud (“cold”), Low German kold, koolt, koold (“cold”), German kalt (“cold”), Danish kold (“cold”), Norwegian kald (“cold”), Swedish kall (“cold”).
Synonyms
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: ccold,clod,codl,coldd,colld,ocld
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for cold
Misspelling Variants of "cold"
Frequency rank: #1,013 in English
Frequently Asked Questions
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter C in our English index: