Blow hot and cold

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Meaning

Behave inconsistently by alternating between enthusiasm and reluctance, approval and disapproval, or other opposite attitudes, leaving your true position difficult to judge.

Origin

The image is preserved in the traditional Aesopic fable 'The Satyr and the Traveller': a traveller blows on his hands to warm them and on his food to cool it, leading the satyr to distrust someone who blows hot and cold with the same mouth. The fable explains the metaphor, but it does not date the English wording to the supposed lifetime of Aesop. William Chillingworth used the expression figuratively in The Religion of Protestants in 1638, providing firm early English evidence. 'Run hot and cold' is a recorded equivalent, but the sources do not establish that its wording followed the same route from the fable.

Research Sources

  1. blow hot and cold Cambridge University Press
  2. The religion of protestants a safe way to salvation Early English Books Online Text Creation Partnership, University of Michigan Library
  3. Favourite Fables, in Prose and Verse Project Gutenberg
  4. In the Loop: A Reference Guide to American English Idioms U.S. Department of State, Office of English Language Programs

Variants

  • Run hot and cold
  • Blow both hot and cold
  • Blow hot and cold with the same breath

Usage Examples

  • The board has blown hot and cold on the merger, praising its savings one week and questioning it the next.
  • His publisher kept blowing hot and cold, so Lena did not know whether the manuscript would be accepted.
  • Voters may lose confidence when a minister blows hot and cold on the same policy.

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