cold sweat

plural cold sweats · alternative coldsweat

1. Perspiration which feels chilly to the person perspiring, and which indicates debilitating illness, shock, or the experiencing of an intense emotion such as despair, anxiety, or, especially, fear.

   One could argue that the banking crisis is just the cold sweat, not the flu that follows it

   2008 October 9, James Saft, “The current crisis is only the beginning”, in New York Times, retrieved 16 Jul 2013

   4 more examples

   . . . And the dead were at my feet. The cold sweat melted from their limbs, Ne rot, ne reek did they; The look with which they look'd on me, Had never pass'd away.

   1798, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, part 4

   He clasped his hands together, and involuntarily uttered a subdued exclamation of horror. A mist came before his eyes; the cold sweat stood upon his ashy face.

   1839, Charles Dickens, chapter 22, in Oliver Twist

   [T]he great fear grew on me till the cold sweat ran from my brow and my soul was faint within me.

   1889, H. Rider Haggard, chapter 2, in Cleopatra

   The leader of the hounds broke into cry again, a deep, full-toned, ringing bay, strange, ominous, terribly significant in its power. It caused a cold sweat to ooze out all over Duane's body.

   1915, Zane Grey, chapter 12, in The Lone Star Ranger