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Reader question: Please explain “cold comfort”, as in this sentence: She said time will heal but that was cold comfort to me. My comments: Reading between the lines, we see that something happened. In fact something terrible happened. In order to help her friend and make her feel better, she said to her “Time will heal”. But that was not adequate. Her friend will keep feeling bad. For the time being at any rate. Because, you see, time will heal all wounds. But you do have to give it time. All in good time, I hope. Anyways, the thing to focus on for the moment is “cold front” and that means slight comfort or small encouragement that is of little help. Cold comfort literally reads like a self contradiction because we seldom associate something cold with something comfortable. Cold bed, for instance. Ugh. Or cold dinner? Cold bath (and it’s winter, too). Cold shoulders. Cold heart. Or cold war. I’m kidding. A cold war is better than a “hot” war any time but you get the point – something cold is usually considered not as heart-warming as something warm, such as the warm breezes of spring. And that’s exactly how “cold comfort” feels – comforting to a degree but far from enough. Here, get better acquainted with “cold comfort” (a phrase that Phrase.org says came into existence as early as in the 15th century) through media examples, of which there are, helpfully, plenty: | 
