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By Liz Walter

In my last post I wrote about hot and warm temperatures. Today’s post looks at vocabulary for things that are colder, again with an emphasis on what each word or phrase can describe.

Something that is cool is quite cold. This is almost always a positive description, especially when it contrasts with something that is too hot:

There was a lovely cool breeze coming from the sea.

If we say that there is a chill – or more informally a nip – in the air, we mean that the weather is rather cold. A person who is very cold might describe themselves as being chilled to the bone. Chilly describes cold places, people or parts of the body, while nippy is used for the weather or the air but not usually people or parts of the body. Neither adjective is very emphatic:

There’s a real chill in the air this morning.

After two hours waiting at the bus stop, I was chilled to the bone.

I was feeling rather chilly.

It’s a bit nippy outside today.

There are several words or phrases for talking about very cold temperatures. A general and very common one is freezing or freezing cold. This can be used for objects, weather and people:

My feet are absolutely freezing!

It was a freezing cold day.

Something that is icy is either covered in ice or extremely cold. This adjective can be used for most things, as can the expressions ice-cold and as cold as ice, which both emphasize extreme coldness. Stone-cold tends to be used rather negatively for something that was once hot or which should be hot:

We shivered in the icy wind.

I’d love an ice-cold drink.

Her hands were as cold as ice.

By then, the soup was stone-cold.

We can say that a place or the weather is bitter or bitterly cold.  These words are negative and imply that the cold is painful:

We tried to shelter from the bitter wind.

It was bitterly cold on the mountain.

In extremely cold climates, we may talk about sub-zero temperatures. Glacial and arctic are also emphatic adjectives for extremely low temperatures:

Parts of the country experienced sub-zero temperatures last night.

Glacial temperatures added to their problems.

The temperature in his room was positively arctic.

Liquids that are  only slightly warm may be described as lukewarm or tepid. Both these words usually express disapproval and imply that the thing being described should be hotter:

The food was lukewarm.

The water in the bath was tepid.

I hope these temperature words are useful. Let me know in the comments if you can think of any more!