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FRIGID
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Extremely cold
Example:
polar weather
Synonyms:
arctic; frigid; gelid; glacial; icy; polar
Classified under:
Similar:
cold (having a low or inadequate temperature or feeling a sensation of coldness or having been made cold by e.g. ice or refrigeration)
Sense 2
Meaning:
Devoid of warmth and cordiality; expressive of unfriendliness or disdain
Example:
wintry smile
Synonyms:
frigid; frosty; frozen; glacial; icy; wintry
Classified under:
Similar:
cold (extended meanings; especially of psychological coldness; without human warmth or emotion)
Derivation:
frigidity; frigidness (a lack of affection or enthusiasm)
Sense 3
Meaning:
Sexually unresponsive
Example:
a frigid woman
Synonyms:
cold; frigid
Classified under:
Adjectives
Similar:
unloving (not giving or reciprocating affection)
Derivation:
frigidity; frigidness (sexual unresponsiveness (especially of women) and inability to achieve orgasm during intercourse)
Context examples:
Its land boundary is buttressed by massive, floating ice shelves extending hundreds of miles out over the frigid waters of the Southern Ocean.
(Antarctic ice cliffs may not contribute to ice-sheet instability as much as predicted, National Science Foundation)
Even the stratosphere temperature of minus 333 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 203 degrees Celsius), observed by Cassini just south of the equator, was not frigid enough to allow the scant methane in this region of the atmosphere to condense into ice.
(NASA Finds Methane Ice Cloud in Titan's Stratosphere, NASA)
But instead of water raining down from clouds and filling lakes and seas as on Earth, on Titan what rains down is methane and ethane - hydrocarbons that we think of as gases but that behave as liquids in Titan's frigid climate.
(The First Global Geologic Map of Titan Completed, NASA)
But instead of water raining down from clouds and filling lakes and seas as on Earth, on Titan it's methane and ethane - hydrocarbons that we think of as gases but that behave as liquids in Titan's frigid climate.
(New Models Suggest Titan Lakes Are Explosion Craters, NASA)
That my papa was too partial, I know; still, on such a point as the frigid coldness which has ever subsisted between Mr. Micawber and my family, I necessarily have formed an opinion, delusive though it may be.”
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
Mrs. Fairfax folded up her knitting: I took my portfolio: we curtseyed to him, received a frigid bow in return, and so withdrew.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
He was, in short, in his after-dinner mood; more expanded and genial, and also more self- indulgent than the frigid and rigid temper of the morning; still he looked preciously grim, cushioning his massive head against the swelling back of his chair, and receiving the light of the fire on his granite- hewn features, and in his great, dark eyes; for he had great, dark eyes, and very fine eyes, too—not without a certain change in their depths sometimes, which, if it was not softness, reminded you, at least, of that feeling.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
