the.com/cold turkey
Quitting instantly, as if willpower were a light switch and not a muscle.
means Stopping a habit or addiction abruptly and completely, with no gradual weaning off.
from First shows up in early 20th-century slang, likely tied to the clammy, goose-pimpled skin of someone in drug withdrawal — pale, cold, and plucked-looking, like a turkey carcass fresh from the fridge. It's a cousin, in spirit, to the older phrase 'talk turkey' (to speak bluntly), since 'cold turkey' also carries that same sense of blunt, no-preamble directness — doing something plainly, abruptly, without dressing it up.
- origin theory
- skin looks pale and bumpy, like refrigerated turkey
- contrast term
- tapering, the slow unglamorous alternative
- first recorded use
- 1920s, describing sudden drug withdrawal
- body's opinion
- often disagrees violently, hence withdrawal symptoms