die kalte Schulter zeigen

German

Etymology

Literally, "to show the cold shoulder", which uses the verb used in the first recorded use of the expression, which was in 1816 by Sir Walter Scott in Scots (“The Countess’s dislike didna gang farther at first than just showing o’ the cauld shouther”.) This expression and its German equivalent are mistranslations of dederunt umerum recedentem from the Book of Nehemiah 9.29 from the Vulgate Bible, which actually means "stubbornly they turned their backs on you", which comes from the Septuagint Bible's equivalent ἔδωκαν νῶτον ἀπειθοῦντα (édōkan nôton apeithoûnta). Latin umerus means both "shoulder" and "back".

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /diː ˈkaltə ˈʃʊltɐ ˈt͡saɪ̯ɡn̩/
  • (file)

Verb

die kalte Schulter zeigen (weak, third-person singular present zeigt die kalte Schulter, past tense zeigte die kalte Schulter, past participle die kalte Schulter gezeigt, auxiliary haben)

  1. to give someone the cold shoulder [+dative]
    • 2009 August 25, Peter Schilder, “Hase Jurk und Igel Hahn”, in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, page 3:
      Die SPD will davon nichts wissen und zeigt der Linkspartei die kalte Schulter.
      The SPD doesn’t want to hear about that and gives the Left Party the cold shoulder.

Conjugation

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