stone-cold

1 of 2

adjective

ˈstōn-ˈkōld 

1

: completely cold

stone-cold soup

The weather was stone-cold and often gray, with a 20-mile-an-hour headwind scouring the backstretch.

—Lorna Lentini

—often used figuratively

a stone-cold killer

… his stone-cold calculation was that he could score more money more quickly with a bat and glove.

—Scott Burton

2

US, informal : absolute, utter

In the last decade, DNA tests have provided stone-cold proof that 69 people were sent to prison and death row in North America for crimes they did not commit.

—Jim Dwyer et al.

stone-cold

2 of 2

adverb

US, informal

: absolutely, utterly

stone-cold sober

Walter Anderson was a stone-cold handsome guy, a tall, powerfully built man with a thick head of wavy blond hair …

—Edgar Allen Beam

Examples of stone-cold in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Adjective

Part self-effacing memoir, part how-to for writing screenplays, and a window into how the levers of power worked in Hollywood, this book is a stone-cold classic. —Matt Brennan, Los Angeles Times, 8 Apr. 2024

One way to view the meteoric growth of women’s college basketball is through the career arc of its current protagonist: Caitlin Clark, the University of Iowa’s stone-cold mad bomber. —Billy Witz, New York Times, 2 Apr. 2024

Martin keeps starring in movies, some of which are stone-cold classics (L.A. Story, Roxanne, All of Me) and many of which are middlebrow at best. —David Fear, Rolling Stone, 1 Apr. 2024

When Clark, who is white, had done it, it had been widely characterized as a sign of her stone-cold cool. —Louisa Thomas, The New Yorker, 16 Mar. 2024

The big losers in Anderson will be those who tried to use lawfare to stop Donald Trump stone-cold dead in his tracks. —Robert J. Delahunty, National Review, 14 Feb. 2024

The crowd under the retractable roof on a frigid day in the Dallas area had already been stone-cold silenced when Prescott tried to throw a slant to top receiver CeeDee Lamb. —Schuyler Dixon, USA TODAY, 15 Jan. 2024

This fast, violent story centers on a stone-cold killer, a small-town sheriff and an average Joe who stumbles across a leather case filled with more than $2 million. —Dwight Garner, New York Times, 13 June 2023

But because Michaela and I knew each other really well and look alike, Nicole decided to make [them] sisters, which was stone-cold genius. —Tomris Laffly, Harper's BAZAAR, 31 May 2023

Adverb

Now, 30 years after its initial release, the song is a stone-cold ’90s country classic and has been a mainstay in Jackson’s concerts for the past three decades. —Jessica Nicholson, Billboard, 22 Feb. 2023

Word History

First Known Use

Adjective

1548, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Adverb

1898, in the meaning defined above