to give the cold shoulder
Se for me dar gelo, não esqueça a vodka!
If you're going to give me the cold shoulder, don't forget the vodka!
The expression turns gelo ("ice") into an image of emotional coldness: to dar um gelo is to "give someone ice," treating them with frosty silence and indifference. Cold as a metaphor for unfriendliness is shared by many languages — compare the English "cold shoulder" — so the Brazilian phrase has no single documented origin and rests simply on the everyday link between low temperature and withheld warmth.
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