as in clam
a cold aloof person
my new boss is a cold turkey and definitely not one for chitchat
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Recent Examples of cold turkey
Hetman testified in direct examination Monday that her son had a Percocet addiction in 2013 and had quit cold turkey.
—
Sam Blum, New York Times, 19 Nov. 2025
If going off Wi-Fi cold turkey seems too extreme, Aguiar suggested giving kids a bit of time on devices as needed before taking them to do something else.
—Nathan Diller, USA Today, 16 Oct. 2025
But unlike nicotine or narcotics, food is something that all people need to survive, so quitting cold turkey isn’t an option.
—Claire Wilcox, The Conversation, 10 Oct. 2025
Don’t quit everything you are involved with cold turkey.
—Phil Blair, San Diego Union-Tribune, 7 July 2025
See All Example Sentences for cold turkey
Sam Blum, New York Times, 19 Nov. 2025
If going off Wi-Fi cold turkey seems too extreme, Aguiar suggested giving kids a bit of time on devices as needed before taking them to do something else.
—Nathan Diller, USA Today, 16 Oct. 2025
But unlike nicotine or narcotics, food is something that all people need to survive, so quitting cold turkey isn’t an option.
—Claire Wilcox, The Conversation, 10 Oct. 2025
Don’t quit everything you are involved with cold turkey.
—Phil Blair, San Diego Union-Tribune, 7 July 2025
See All Example Sentences for cold turkey
Recent Examples of Synonyms for cold turkey
Noun
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Arsenic spikes in New Zealand’s Waikato River were blamed on invasive clams, and recent Houthi attacks in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait indirectly caused a shift in oceanic cloud formation.—
Rafil Kroll-Zaidi,
Harpers Magazine,
27 Jan. 2026
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For seafood, Old Fisherman’s Grotto on Monterey’s Fisherman’s Wharf has been serving clam chowder since 1950.—
Audrey T. Williams,
Mercury News,
26 Jan. 2026
Noun
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That impulse extends to dealing with occasional rude customers at her day gig, where the coworkers are nice but the boss, family-business heir Maxwell Sterling (Peter Serafinowicz), is one nasty cold fish.—
Dennis Harvey,
Variety,
27 Nov. 2025
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Lancelot, still the Round Table’s greatest hero, is a bit of a cold fish with an unexpected role to play as the saga winds to its close.—
Elizabeth Hand,
Washington Post,
16 July 2024
Noun
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The couple, a man and a woman, were struck on their backs with a rattan stick in a public park while dozens of people watched, according to an AFP reporter at the scene.—
CBS News,
CBS News,
29 Jan. 2026
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The new approach to performance assessment isn’t all stick—there are carrots, too.—
Claire Zillman,
Fortune,
28 Jan. 2026
Noun
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Like an iceberg, much of our creative processing happens beneath the surface.—
Literary Hub,
Literary Hub,
29 Jan. 2026
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Mother Nature can create ice jams, which are like icebergs that can potentially slam into bridges, docks, boats and more.—
Megan Shinn,
CBS News,
27 Jan. 2026
Cite this Entry
“Cold turkey.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/cold%20turkey. Accessed 1 Feb. 2026.
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