froideur means A cold or indifferent manner. It carries an Arena rating of 1689, earned across 44 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, froideur ranks #4,011 of 17,138 for Most Incisive Words, #4,392 of 17,127 for Words That Escaped Their Books, #4,486 of 17,126 for Most Elegant Words, #5,467 of 17,135 for Most Malleable Words.
froideur is pronounced /fɹwɑːˈdɜː(ɹ)/.
Why “froideur” is a great word
FROIDEUR — [Noun] A pronounced coldness or marked reserve in manner, which creates a distinct chill in personal relations. Borrowed from French froideur, literally meaning "coldness," from froid ("cold") + the noun-forming suffix -eur. Unlike "aloofness," which suggests a conscious, one-sided distance, or "indifference," which denotes a simple lack of concern, froideur implies a palpable, often reciprocal, atmospheric tension. It is the brittle silence of a shared elevator after an argument, the perfectly correct and utterly empty pleasantry between former friends, or the rigid posture maintained across a negotiating table—the social temperature at which civility and contempt achieve a frigid equilibrium. We build fires to gather around, but we reserve this word for the climate we create when we choose to stand apart.
Etymology
Borrowed from French froideur (literally “coldness”).
noun
- A cold or indifferent manner.
- A chill in relations.e.g.“"There was a froideur between the Bank of England and the Swiss central bank for some time," recalled Collins.” — 2001, Ron Chernow, The House of Morgan, →ISBN, page 548:
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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