Timeline for Origin of the exact phrase "cold iron"?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
15 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Nov 11, 2023 at 18:53 | answer | added | Donald Provost | timeline score: 0 | |
| Jun 12, 2022 at 23:20 | comment | added | John Lawler | You can't find the origins of a phrase. The only thing you can find is an early printed use that has survived, which means that the phrase was in use for a long time before it was printed. Printers don't invent language; speakers do, and they are apt to go on for some time before the printers notice. | |
| Jun 12, 2022 at 20:00 | history | bumped | CommunityBot | This question has answers that may be good or bad; the system has marked it active so that they can be reviewed. | |
| Feb 12, 2022 at 18:06 | history | bumped | CommunityBot | This question has answers that may be good or bad; the system has marked it active so that they can be reviewed. | |
| Oct 15, 2021 at 16:06 | history | bumped | CommunityBot | This question has answers that may be good or bad; the system has marked it active so that they can be reviewed. | |
| Jun 18, 2021 at 20:32 | comment | added | Quuxplusone |
@ConsciousClay: I was using the verb "forget" in a figurative sense. :) If you're interested in the meaning of the phrase, see What is cold iron, actually? or the blog post Why don't fairies like cold iron?. This EL&U question, though, is tagged phrase-origin: I'm looking for the origin of the phrase, regardless of what real-world substance(s) it might denote.
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| Jun 18, 2021 at 19:39 | comment | added | Pound Hash | Forget what it is? How could we interpret the meaning of that term without considering what it refers to? | |
| Jun 16, 2021 at 23:28 | answer | added | Greybeard | timeline score: 0 | |
| Jun 16, 2021 at 22:53 | answer | added | Quuxplusone | timeline score: 2 | |
| Jun 15, 2021 at 16:16 | comment | added | FumbleFingers | ...whatever - you might want to look at Why don't fairies like cold iron? Until I just looked at it, I didn't really realise there is actually such a thing as cold-wrought iron. | |
| Jun 15, 2021 at 16:12 | comment | added | FumbleFingers | I only included afraid of because it seemed like an easy way to limit the hits to "weaponry". But actually, if I search Google Books for pre-1822 instances of with cold steel it's obvious the collocation was in use with that meaning long before Scott. As a rule, we'd talk about steel swords, not iron ones, even back then. | |
| Jun 15, 2021 at 15:57 | comment | added | Quuxplusone | @FumbleFingers: The exact phrase you ngrammed, "afraid of cold steel," appears in Scott's The Fortunes of Nigel (1822), which was reprinted ad nauseam (especially in Google Books' dataset). In all of Google's 19th century, I see 22 copies of Nigel, plus 4 non-Nigel citations for "afraid of cold steel" that are IMO very likely to be quoting Scott deliberately (1853, 1867, 1891, 1895). I do see a few pre-Scott uses of "cold iron" to mean "sword" (e.g. 1713), but anyway I want to focus on the faery-scarey aspect. | |
| Jun 15, 2021 at 15:13 | comment | added | FumbleFingers | Cold iron never had any significant currency compared to cold steel (as a "poetic" way of referring to bladed weapons). | |
| Jun 15, 2021 at 9:20 | comment | added | Stuart F | The phrase "cold iron" was widely used in the 18th century to refer to a sword or dagger (see Grose's dictionary and other examples), so Kirk's may be an early instance of that in the 1690s. He may just have meant they fear swords. However, since Kirk was supposedly recording Scottish folk beliefs, it may derive from an oral tradition, otherwise unrecorded. | |
| Jun 15, 2021 at 4:19 | history | asked | Quuxplusone | CC BY-SA 4.0 |