[see COLD a. 2.] Water at its natural temperature, which is always many degrees below that of the human body, as opposed to warm or hot water. Often referred to as the simplest and most typical beverage; also as used for washing or bathing, or in hydropathy.
c. 950. Lindisf. Gosp., Matt. x. 42. Cælc wætres caldes.
c. 1000. Ags. Gosp., ibid. Anne drinc chealdes wæteres.
c. 1160. Hatton Gosp., ibid. Ænne drinc chealdes wæteres.
c. 1325. E. E. Allit. P., C. 152. Þenne suppe bihoued þe coge of þe colde water, & þenne þe cry ryses.
1611. Bible, Prov. xxv. 25. As cold waters to a thirstie soule: so is good newes from a farre countrey.
1798. Duncan, Annals Med., III. 21. Dr. Currie encouraged him to drink largely of cold water and lemonade.
1800. Med. Jrnl., IV. 397. Historical Sketch of the Use of the Affusion of Cold Water.
1843. Abdy, Water Cure, 106. How the sudden application of cold water acts on the body.
1856. Emerson, Eng. Traits, Race, Wks. (Bohn), II. 31. The extremes of poverty and ascetic penance, it would seem, never reach cold water in England.
† b. Formerly, the water of baptism; the font.
1387. Trevisa, Higden (Rolls), V. 309. Kyng Clodoneus was his godfader and took hym of þe cold water [de fonte suscepit]. Ibid., VI. 451. Edmond feng Anlaf of þe colde water.
c. To throw cold water on (alluding to the shock thus given to the naked body): to heap discouragement on, disparage, ‘damp.’
1808. Trial Gen. Whitelocke (ed. Mottley), II. 442. He had stated that I was throwing cold water on everything he did.
1883. Mrs. Bishop, in Leisure Hour, 86/2. Who threw cold water on the idea.
d. attrib., as in cold water physician; esp. with reference to hydropathy, as cold water cure, treatment, etc.; or (sportively) to the Total Abstinence movement, as cold water army, etc.
1601. Holland, Pliny, II. 243. [Asclepiades] brought vp first the allowing of cold water … to sick persons; and took pleasure to be called the Cold-water Physitian.
1807. Med. Jrnl., XVII. 323. The cold-water treatment has in our hands been very successful.
1878. trans. Ziemssen’s Cycl. Med., XIII. 173. The cold-water cure has been much and advantageously employed in diseases of the cord.
Hence Cold-waterish a.
1870. Lowell, Study Wind. (1886), 152. That somewhat cold-waterish region.
