When you’ve bought any buddies who’re significantly lily-livered, you may need leveled an accusation towards them of getting “chilly ft.” It’s a phrase that’s used to indicate that somebody’s too nervous to do one thing. However there’s one specific utilization that appears to be the commonest: bailing on a marriage.
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In that context, it’s a type of idioms that appears to make pure sense till you begin to dissect it. It’s not like “chilly” and nervous are miles aside, with sayings like “blood ran chilly” or “chill down the backbone” additionally within the realm of concern. (Weirdly, “in chilly blood” means with none nerves or emotion in any respect, however we’ll ignore that one for a minute.) “Blood ran chilly” and a “chill down the backbone” are additionally each, if not precisely scientifically strong, an actual sensation that occurs.
On the flip aspect, I can’t consider a single time that I ever felt panic from the bottom up, or any sort of opinion emanating from my ft.
As with many barely off-kilter sayings, “having chilly ft” depends closely on seniority, seniority that “chilly ft” can simply declare. The historical past goes all the best way again to an utterance in an Italian play named Volpone from 1605, the place a personality says: “Let me let you know, I’m not, as your Lombard proverb saith, chilly on my ft; or content material to half with my commodities at a less expensive charge, than I accustomed: look not for it.”
The which means is that the individual in query is financially comfy, which does make a sure form of sense, because the possession or lack of sneakers is certainly a typical connection to somebody’s monetary standing. Think about a pauper — it’s nearly assured they’ve bought their tootsies out in open air. There’s additionally an fascinating element right here in that they consult with it as a their “Lombard proverb,” insinuating that even then, it was already a identified proverb, one of many Lombards’, a Germanic tribe that invaded Italy, which I suppose is how they ended up of their performs.
And positive sufficient, we do discover a phrase associated to chilly ft in Germany. In 1862, in a German novel, it is a card-player who will get chilly ft, or kalte fube bekommen. In fact, there may not be a single larger intersection between cash and nerves than a card desk. Although not particular, it appears like this may be the place it begins to maneuver into the realm of braveness, because the card participant is certainly too nervous to proceed taking part in, due to the chance of economic misfortune.
Much more germane (although not German), it is utilized in an 1896 ebook referred to as Maggie: A Woman of the Streets in just about its fashionable which means, minus the marriage atmosphere: “I knew this was the best way it will be. They bought chilly ft.”
It was additionally apparently an insult thrown at individuals who weren’t all too eager to combat in World Conflict I. It looks like this all may be a good guess for a way chilly ft turned shorthand for backing out.
As for a way weddings turned a part of the equation, properly, that half is simple: Such a nerve-racking choice and dedication can cool even the warmest of ft.
