come in from the cold

English dictionary entry

Meanings

verb

Of a spy: to return home after having gone undercover in enemy territory.
To gain widespread acceptance in a group or society, especially where there was not any before.

Pronunciation

kŭm′ ĭn′ frəm thə kōld′ /ˈkʌm ˌɪn fɹəm ðə ˈkəʊ̯ld/ /ˈkʌm ˌɪn fɹəm ðə ˈkoʊ̯ld/ /ˈkɐm ˌɪn fɹəm ðə ˈkəʉ̯ld/ /ˈkɐm ˌən fɹəm ðə ˈkɐʉ̯ld/ /ˈkʌm ˌɪn fɹəm ðə ˈkold/ /ˈkəm ˌɪn fɾom d̪e ˈkoːlɖ/ En-au-come in from the cold.ogg

Word forms

come in from the cold comes in from the cold coming in from the cold came in from the cold come in out of the cold

Etymology

Literally, the term refers to someone who is outdoors when the weather is cold coming indoors to a warm place. The idiomatic senses were popularized by the title of the novel The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1963) by the British author John le Carré (1931–2020); “the Cold” is a pun on the Cold War, during which the novel is set.

Related words

brought in from the cold leave someone out in the cold

This entry uses open data from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA/GFDL). Word forms are used for search and are not indexed as separate pages.

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