cold fish

noun, Informal.
1.
a person who is very reserved or aloof in manner or who lacks normal cordiality, sympathy, or other feeling.
Origin
1940-45
British Dictionary definitions for cold fish

cold fish

noun
1.
an unemotional and unfriendly person
Slang definitions & phrases for cold fish

cold fish

modifier

: Jackson offered a cold-fish handshake to Antrim after the game

noun phrase

A person who lacks emotional warmth, compassion, sociability, etc; iceberg (1920s+)


Idioms and Phrases with cold fish

cold fish

A hard-hearted, unfeeling individual, one who shows no emotion, as in Not even the eulogy moved him; he's a real cold fish. This expression was used by Shakespeare in The Winter's Tale (4:4): “It was thought she was a woman, and was turn'd into a cold fish.” However, it came into wider use only in the first half of the 1900s.