come in from the cold

English

WOTD – 19 October 2022

Etymology

Literally, the term refers to someone who is outdoors when the weather is cold coming indoors to a warm place. The idiomatic senses were popularized by the title of the novel The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1963)^[1] by the British author John le Carré (1931–2020); “the Cold” is a pun on the Cold War, during which the novel is set.^[2]^[3]

Pronunciation

(Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈkʌm‿ɪn fɹəm ðə ˈkəʊld/
(General American) IPA^(key): /ˈkʌm‿ɪn fɹəm ðə ˈkoʊld/
Audio (General Australian): (file)
Rhymes: -əʊld

Verb

come in from the cold (third-person singular simple present comes in from the cold, present participle coming in from the cold, simple past came in from the cold, past participle come in from the cold) (intransitive, idiomatic)

(espionage) Of a spy: to return home after having gone undercover in enemy territory.
- 1963 September, John le Carré [pseudonym; David John Moore Cornwell], “The Circus”, in The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Coward-McCann, published 1964, →OCLC, page 23:
  I mean … one can't be out in the cold all the time; one has to come in from the cold … do you see what I mean?
(by extension) To gain widespread acceptance in a group or society, especially where there was not any before.
Long an outsider in Western politics, Portugal came in from the cold after the 1974 Carnation Revolution.

Related terms

Translations

of a spy: to return home after having gone undercover in enemy territory

Finnish: palata kotiin
Hebrew: חָזַר מִן הַכְּפוֹר m (khazár min hakfór)

to gain widespread acceptance in a group or society, especially where there was not any before

Finnish: tulla esiin pimennosta
French: venir du froid (fr)

References

^ John le Carré [pseudonym; David John Moore Cornwell] (1963 September) The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, London: Victor Gollancz, →OCLC.
^ “to come in from the cold, phrase” under “cold, n.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, September 2022.
^ “come in from the cold”, in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present, reproduced from Christine Ammer, The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms, Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin, 2003, →ISBN.