cold feet

In real, traceable use. Part of the curated seed collection; community review is coming.

Meaning · English

Not going through with an action, particularly one which requires long term commitment, due to fear, uncertainty and doubt.

Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt

không thực hiện hành động do sợ hãi hoặc nghi ngờ

Machine-translated — suggest a fix

Where it’s used: Used Widespread English

Examples

‘ I wonder why people get cold feet,’ Killion remarked.
Instead, we've got cold feet!’

British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)

Sources & notes

Imported from Wikipedia “English-language idioms” (CC BY-SA 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-29), pending review. Figurative class: Euphemism (PIE-English corpus, CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-31).

Common questions

What does “cold feet” mean?

Not going through with an action, particularly one which requires long term commitment, due to fear, uncertainty and doubt.

Is “cold feet” formal or informal?

No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.