come in from the cold
English
WOTD – 19 October 2022
Alternative forms
- come in out of the cold
Etymology
Literally, the term refers to someone who is outdoors when the weather is cold coming indoors to a warm place. The idiomatic senses were popularized by the title of the novel The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1963)[1] by the British author John le Carré (1931–2020); “the Cold” is a pun on the Cold War, during which the novel is set.[2][3]
Pronunciation
- enPR: kŭm′ ĭn′ frəm thə kōld′
- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ˈkʌm ˌɪn fɹəm ðə ˈkəʊ̯ld/
- (General American, Canada) IPA(key): /ˈkʌm ˌɪn fɹəm ðə ˈkoʊ̯ld/
- (General Australian) IPA(key): /ˈkɐm ˌɪn fɹəm ðə ˈkəʉ̯ld/
- (New Zealand) IPA(key): /ˈkɐm ˌən fɹəm ðə ˈkɐʉ̯ld/
- (Scotland) IPA(key): /ˈkʌm ˌɪn fɹəm ðə ˈkold/
- (India) IPA(key): /ˈkəm ˌɪn fɾom d̪e ˈkoːlɖ/
Audio (General Australian): (file) - Hyphenation: come in from the cold
Verb
come in from the cold (third-person singular simple present comes in from the cold, present participle coming in from the cold, simple past came in from the cold or (now nonstandard) come in from the cold, past participle come in from the cold or (rare) comen in from the cold or (colloquial) came in from the cold) (intransitive, idiomatic)
- (espionage) Of a spy: to return home after having gone undercover in enemy territory.
- 1963 September, John le Carré [pseudonym; David John Moore Cornwell], “The Circus”, in The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Coward-McCann, published 1964, →OCLC, page 23:
- I mean … one can't be out in the cold all the time; one has to come in from the cold … do you see what I mean?
- (figurative) To gain widespread acceptance in a group or society, especially where there was not any before.
- Long an outsider in Western politics, Portugal came in from the cold after the 1974 Carnation Revolution.
Related terms
- brought in from the cold
- leave someone out in the cold
Translations
of a spy: to return home after having gone undercover in enemy territory
to gain widespread acceptance in a group or society, especially where there was not any before
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References
- ^ John le Carré [pseudonym; David John Moore Cornwell] (September 1963), The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, London: Victor Gollancz, →OCLC.
- ^ “to come in from the cold, phrase” under “cold, n.”, in OED Online , Oxford: Oxford University Press, September 2022.
- ^ Christine Ammer (2013), “come in from the cold”, in American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms, second edition, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, →ISBN, page 89, column 2.
Further reading
- “come in from the cold”, in Collins English Dictionary.
- “come in from the cold” in Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, Longman.
- “come in from the cold”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.
- “come in from the cold”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.