frigid
/ˈfrɪdʒɪd
/adjective
1Very cold in temperature: frigid water...
- The sea here is as cold as Cornwall in winter and you have to wear a full wetsuit, boots, gloves and a hood to insulate you from the frigid waters and equally cold winds.
- But I kept running faster and faster until I got to the courtyard where I jumped into the cold, frigid fountain and let the water wash over my body.
- Bigelow residents awoke to frigid temperatures last Sunday morning, and not just outside.
Synonyms
very cold, bitterly cold, bitter, freezing, frozen, frosty, icy, icy-cold, ice-cold, chilly, wintry, bleak, sub-zero, arctic, Siberian, polar, glacial
informal nippy
British informal parky
literary chill
rare Hyperborean, hibernal, boreal, hiemal, gelid, algid, brumal, rimy
1.1(Of a woman) unable to be sexually aroused and responsive: I’ve never been good at rejecting people, so I told him I was frigid...
- The author, an intelligent woman and self-described formerly frigid wife, provides a long laundry list of explanations for this unhappy state of affairs.
- With her usual perfection, Keaton plays an uptight frigid woman who is quietly appalled by her daughter's romantic liaison.
- The frigid girl he'd first known was melting away.
Synonyms
sexually unresponsive, unresponsive, undemonstrative, unaffectionate, cold, cold-blooded, cold-hearted, passionless, unfeeling, unemotional, unloving, uncaring
1.2Stiff or formal in behaviour or style: the frigid elegance of the new Opera Bastille...
- ‘Listen to me, girl,’ he snapped, his tone suddenly frigid and unfriendly.
- Before long, however, she's back on baby-sitting duty, as assigned to her by her frigid stepmother.
- She didn't want her new friend to think she was frigid or strange in any way.
Synonyms
stiff, formal, stony, steely, flinty, wooden, impersonal, indifferent, unresponsive, unemotional, unfeeling, unsmiling, unenthusiastic, austere, distant, aloof, remote, reserved, unapproachable;
frosty, cold, icy, cool, lukewarm, forbidding, unfriendly, unwelcoming, hostile
informal offish, stand-offish
Derivatives
frigidity
/ noun ...- What was more, I was determined to defy the frigidity of my race, that ancient shameful legacy of inhibition.
- People do not view some behaviors such as addiction, violence, depression, and sexual frigidity as psychological problems.
- His hotel room was on the 17th floor; in the painting he conveys the feeling of the high rises and the frigidity of the weather.
frigidly
/ adverb ...- ‘We are all gratified to see your health so much improved,’ Lady Alison said frigidly.
- ‘Talk is damaging, Lady Readle,’ she refuted frigidly.
- ‘I see,’ she replied frigidly, her movements stiff with hurt.
frigidness
- And yet for all the general frigidness of the whole environment, I wasn't really feeling too cold.
- The vibrant colors used accentuate the lushness of a forest, the frigidness atop high mountains, and the bleakness of a smoky factory.
- Despite temperatures above the frigidness that we expect for early January, the sun still swings its lowly, fleeting winter arc.
Origin
Late Middle English: from Latin frigidus, from frigere 'be cold', from frigus (noun) 'cold'.
This comes from Latin adjective frigidus ‘cold’, from the noun frigus ‘cold’. The word is also behind refrigerate (Late Middle English). The refrigerator for preserving food appears in the mid 19th century, and was shortened to fridge in the 1920s.