someone's blood runs cold

English

Pronunciation

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

Phrase

one's blood runs cold

1. (literal) One feels a physical shock upon realizing a direct threat to one's life, similar to the loss of blood in the brain. It affects the entire body for a few minutes, but does not cause the person to lose consciousness.
2. (idiomatic) One experiences a visceral feeling of fear, horror, dread, or strong foreboding.
   • 1838, Charles Dickens, chapter 18, in Oliver Twist:

     Little Oliver's blood ran cold, as he listened to the Jew's words, and imperfectly comprehended the dark threats conveyed in them.

   • 1891, H. Rider Haggard, chapter 13, in Nada the Lily:

     [M]y blood ran cold and my heart turned to water, for there, before the cave, rolled wolves, many and great.

   • 1908, W. Somerset Maugham, chapter 9, in The Magician:

     Her blood ran cold, and her heart seemed pressed in an iron vice.

   • 2004 January 12, Jeffrey Ressner, “Sundances with Wolves”, in Time‎^[1], archived from the original on 30 June 2013:

     His "blood runs cold" imagining the wrath of Weinstein.

   • 1838, Boz [pseudonym; Charles Dickens], chapter 20, in Oliver Twist; or, The Parish Boy’s Progress. […], volumes (please specify |volume=I, II, or III), London: Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC:

     Here, he read of dreadful crimes that made the blood run cold.

   • 1897, W[illiam] Somerset Maugham, chapter 7, in Liza of Lambeth, New York, N.Y.: George H[enry] Doran Company, published [1921], →OCLC:

     "Why, it mikes yer blood run cold: they 'ang a man on the stige; oh, it mide me creep all over!"

   • 1914, Lucy Maud Montgomery, The Man on the Train:

     "It just makes my blood run cold to read about it. And to think that the man who did it is still around the country somewhere—plotting other murders."

   • 2009 February 24, John Otis, “Colombia's Drug Extraditions: Are They Worth It?”, in Time:

     [T]he prospect of doing hard time in an American penitentiary was about the only thing that made Pablo Escobar's blood run cold.

Translations

One experiences a visceral feeling of fear, horror, dread, or strong forboding

• German: einem gefriert das Blut in den Adern (literally “one’s blood freezes in the veins”)
• Polish: aż zmroziło pf (with accusative)
• Russian: кровь сты́нет в жи́лах (ru) (krovʹ stýnet v žílax)

See also

• make someone's blood run cold