Commenting on developments in the English language
Author: Liz Walter
Liz Walter is a freelance lexicographer and writer, living in Cambridge, UK. She worked for many years on Cambridge University Press's range of ELT dictionaries and now works with Kate Woodford on dictionaries and other books about the English language. Her other interests include politics, growing vegetables and family holidays in her camper van. She tweets at @LizJWalter
I recently watched a fascinating and shocking TV documentary called ‘Dirty Business’. The subject was the terrible state of the UK’s rivers and seas, and the title has a double meaning. On the one hand, it refers to literal dirt in the water and on the other to apparently unethical practices from both water companies and the UK Environment Agency which should be protecting our water quality. In this post I take a closer look at the way ‘dirty’ is used metaphorically and the words and phrases we often use with it. Continue reading “It’s a dirty business: the metaphorical use of ‘dirty’”→
Today’s post concentrates on a set of compound adjectives (adjectives made from two words) that start with the name of a body part. Unlike compound adjectives where the body part is second (blue-eyed, long-haired, etc.), they tend to be quite idiomatic and in many cases extremely emphatic. Continue reading “Mouth-watering or jaw-dropping: adjectives formed with body parts”→
Most readers of this blog will be familiar with the verb throw when it means using your hand and arm to send something such as a ball through the air. Today’s post looks at some of the many ways that this basic sense of ‘throw’ is used in more idiomatic ways, often in fixed or semi-fixed phrases. Continue reading “Throwing a punch or throwing your head back: using the verb ‘throw’”→
Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, the most visited painting in the world, is famous for its subject’s strange smile. That smile is often described as enigmatic, meaning that it is rather mysterious and it is impossible to guess what she is thinking. Today’s post looks at some other words and phrases to do with people hiding or showing their emotions. Continue reading “Poker faced or heart on your sleeve? Showing or hiding emotions.”→
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-zerotemperatures. 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 lukewarmor 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!
There are a lot of words for talking about temperature in English. Many of them describe particular types of thing. For example, some adjectives can be used to describe the weather but not food or people. This post is the first of a pair, and looks at some common words for things that are hot or warm.
I’ll start with red-hot, which is an emphatic word for something that is extremely hot. We use this adjective for objects, often metal objects, and not usually for weather or food:
Don’t touch that saucepan – it’s red-hot!
We talk about blistering or scorching (hot) weather, but we don’t usually use these words to talk about how people feel when they experience it:
Everyone on the train was baking, but we couldn’t turn the heaters off.
It’s boiling hot here in the summer.
There was no shade on the beach and we were roasting.
We were forced to walk miles in the sweltering heat.
Scalding is an emphatic word used for liquids and implies that they will hurt you if you touch them. On the other hand, piping (hot) usually describes food or drink and is a rather positive description:
She accidentally put her hand in the scalding water.
Make sure the food is piping hot before you eat it.
Tom was running a temperature and feeling very ill.
She was burning up in the night.
If something is warm, it is fairly hot but not very hot. This word usually describes a pleasant temperature. Two more positive words are toasty, which usually describes a person’s body or sometimes a place that is comfortably warm, and balmy, which describes warm weather:
Make sure you stay warm if you’re going out in the snow.
My thick coat kept me toasty.
It was a balmy afternoon and we sat outside.
If you have found these words useful, look out for my next post, which will look at some of the words that describe things that are cold, or only slightly warm.
