pour cold water on

1. 1.

   be discouraging or negative about

   Synonymsthrow cold water on

   Broaderdiscourage

Questions about pour cold water on

What does pour cold water on mean?

pour cold water on means "be discouraging or negative about".

What is another word for pour cold water on?

Close synonyms include throw cold water on. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is pour cold water on a common word?

pour cold water on is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.