a. [f. prec. + -ED.]
1. Having the blood (physically) cold, or of a temperature not higher than the external air or water: said esp. of fishes and reptiles as distinguished from the other vertebrata.
1602. Carew, Cornwall, 30. Of round fish, Brit, Sprat, Barne … Whirlepole and Porpoise. The general way of killing these (that is the Fishermans bloudie terme for this cold-blouded creature) is by Weares [etc.].
1803. Med. Jrnl., IX. 235. Experiments on Galvanic Contractions excited upon warm and principally upon cold blooded Animals.
1851. Carpenter, Man. Phys. (ed. 2), 145. The length of time during which the ciliary movement continues after the general death of the body, is much less in the warm-blooded than in the cold-blooded animals.
b. colloq. Of a person whose circulation is slow.
c. with mixture of sense 2.
1865. Trollope, Belton Est., xx. 242. But then Aylmer was a cold-blooded man,—more like a fish than a man.
2. Without emotion or excitement, unimpassioned, cool; without sensibility, unfeeling, callous; deliberately cruel: a. of persons.
1595. Shaks., John, III. i. 123. Thou cold blooded slaue, Hast thou not spoke like thunder on my side?
1826. Disraeli, Viv. Grey, II. ii. I am no cold-blooded philosopher.
1875. Stubbs, Const. Hist., III. xviii. 7. As king we find him [Henry IV.] suspicious, cold-blooded, and politic.
1875. Whyte-Melville, Riding Recoll., ii. (ed. 7), 14. It is the cold-blooded and sagacious wrestler who takes the prize.
b. of actions, conduct, etc.
1828. W. Sewell, Oxf. Prize Ess., 31. The coldblooded philosophy of Lycurgus.
1849. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., II. 105. The instruments of his cold-blooded malice.
1882. Serjt. Ballantine, Experiences, xvi. 256. This case was peculiarly one of cold-blooded crime.
Hence Cold-bloodedly adv., in a cold-blooded manner; Cold-bloodedness.
1838. T. C. Grattan, in New Monthly Mag., LIII. 52–3. Would-be gamblers, who had no notion of playing as they should have done—that is to say, cold-bloodedly, without a frown on the forehead, and with a smile on the lips, while the pocket was empty, and the heart—a ruin!
1870. Lowell, Among my Bks., Ser. I. (1873), 130. Toward no crime have men shown themselves so cold-bloodedly cruel as in punishing difference of belief.
1878. Mary C. Jackson, Chaperon’s Cares, II. iii. 44. Can we accuse him of cold-bloodedness and calculation, in acting thus?
1884. Manch. Exam., 19 Feb., 4/7. Another proof of the cold-bloodedness of the Government.
