blow hot and cold
To behave inconsistently; to vacillate or to waver, as between extremes of opinion or emotion.
Meaning adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
“He blows hot and cold about our weekend plans.”
“You blow hot and cold whenever I ask for your honest opinion.”
“My boss keeps blowing hot and cold on the project, so I never know if we are actually finishing it.”
“The landlord blows hot and cold about fixing the heater, sometimes promising a repair today and then ignoring my calls for a week.”
“The politician continued to blow hot and cold regarding the new tax policy, leaving voters confused about his true intentions.”
The expression originates from Aesop’s fable The Satyr and the Traveller, in which a satyr observes his human companion blowing on his hands to warm them and then blowing on his soup to cool it. Distrusting a creature capable of producing both heat and cold from the same mouth with the same breath, the satyr promptly terminates the friendship. The idiom entered English as a metaphor for such inconsistency, though modern social consequences are generally less abrupt than those suffered by the traveller.
- 01
a cold day in July
The time of occurrence of an event that will never happen.
- 02
as the wind blows
According to any given circumstances.
- 03
baking hot
Very hot.
- 04
blow a fuse
To lose one's temper; to become enraged.
- 05
blow a hole through
To destroy the integrity or cohesion of.
- 06
blow a kiss
To kiss one's own hand, then blow on it in a direction towards the recipient.
- 07
blow away
To kill (someone) by shooting them with a firearm.
- 08
blow chunks
To vomit chunks of undigested food.
Last updated August 10, 2026