throw cold water on

1. 1.

   be discouraging or negative about

   Synonymspour cold water on

   Broaderdiscourage

Questions about throw cold water on

What does throw cold water on mean?

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

What is another word for throw cold water on?

Close synonyms include pour 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 throw cold water on a common word?

throw 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.