blow hot and cold


blow hot and cold

To vacillate between two opposing or starkly different states, opinions, or behaviors. A: "So, how are things going between you and Mallory?" B: "Hard to tell. She blows hot and cold one day to the next, so I can never tell how she really feels!" The boss has been blowing hot and cold about whether or not we're going through with this project. I wish she would just make a decision.See also: and, blow, cold, hot

blow hot and cold

Fig. to be changeable or uncertain (about something). He keeps blowing hot and cold on the question of moving to the country. He blows hot and cold about this. I wish he'd make up his mind.See also: and, blow, cold, hot

blow hot and cold

Change one's mind, vacillate, as in Jean's been blowing hot and cold about taking a winter vacation. This expression comes from Aesop's fable (c. 570 b.c.) about a man eating with a satyr on a winter day. At first the man blew on his hands to warm them and then blew on his soup to cool it. The satyr thereupon renounced the man's friendship because he blew hot and cold out of the same mouth. The expression was repeated by many writers, most often signifying a person who could not be relied on. William Chillingworth put it: "These men can blow hot and cold out of the same mouth to serve several purposes" ( The Religion of Protestants, 1638). See also: and, blow, cold, hot

blow hot and cold

If someone blows hot and cold, they sometimes seem enthusiastic or interested about something, and sometimes they do not. He's blowing hot and cold on whether or not to take the job. The government has been blowing hot and cold on the talks. Note: In British English, you can also say that someone is blowing hot to mean that they are enthusiastic about something. He was blowing hot about Kieren Fallon's new horse. Note: This expression is often used to show disapproval. See also: and, blow, cold, hot

blow hot and cold

alternate inconsistently between two moods, attitudes, or courses of action; be sometimes enthusiastic, sometimes unenthusiastic about something. This phrase refers to a fable involving a traveller who was offered hospitality by a satyr and offended his host by blowing on his cold fingers to warm them and on his hot soup to cool it.See also: and, blow, cold, hot

blow hot and ˈcold

(informal) keep changing your opinions about somebody/something: She keeps blowing hot and cold about the job: one day she says it’s marvellous, the next she hates it.See also: and, blow, cold, hot

blow hot and cold

To change one's opinion often on a matter; vacillate.See also: and, blow, cold, hot

blow hot and cold, to

To vacillate, to be indecisive. The expression comes from Aesop’s fable about a satyr and a traveler eating together on a cold day. The traveler blew on his hands to warm them and on his soup to cool it. Observing this, the satyr threw him out because he blew hot and cold with the same breath. The term then came to mean hypocrisy (“These men can blow hot and cold out of the same mouth to serve severall purposes,” wrote William Chillingworth about the Protestant religion in 1638). However, it also was used to describe simple indecision (“It is said of old, soon hot, soon cold, and so is a woman,” in Thomas Percy’s 1765 collection, Reliques of Ancient English Poetry).See also: and, blow, hot