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Cold Feet.

Dear Word Detective: What is the origin of the expression "to get cold feet"? I've often experienced "cold feet" and backed out of doing something at the last minute, but have never understood how hypothermia of my nether extremities had anything to do with it. -- Charles Howard, via the internet.

Good question. "To get cold feet" means to become anxious, timid or discouraged, and most often to act on those feelings by, as you say, "backing out" of a commitment or task. A person with "cold feet" who retreats from a task is also often called "chicken," which really isn't fair to the noble fowl, some of whom are quite courageous and have no fear, as I do, of public speaking.

"Cold feet" as a synonym for "timid" seems to date from the late 19th century, but its exact origin is uncertain. Experts have long suspected that the phrase might have something to do with the military, an environment which certainly offers a plethora of things to fear. It is entirely possible that "to get cold feet" originally referred to soldiers who exempted themselves from battle by complaining that their feet were frozen.

A more intriguing possible origin, however, dates back to the 17th century, when "to have cold feet" meant "to have no money," probably referring to someone being so poor as to lack shoes. The transition from the "no money" sense to the modern "timid" sense of "cold feet" may be found in an 1862 German novel in which a card player withdraws from a game claiming that he has "cold feet" (i.e., no money), when in fact he has merely lost his nerve. "To get cold feet," goes the theory, then eventually came to mean backing out of any risky situation, whatever excuse was given.

And other one:
From Peter Zoulas:

I work on sales and sometimes (thankfully not too often) my clients get cold feet and back out of the deal. I understand this phrase is more commonly used to describe brides who change their mind at the last moment. I have often wondered from where this phrase originates. Could you help me please?

Kenneth McKenzie, who was a professor of Italian at Princeton in the earlier half of this century (yes, we are of the "this is still the 20th century" school), actually wrote a paper about the origin of this term, back in 1912. It seems that Ben Johnson provides the first recorded use of the phrase inWell, marble is cold! English, in his Volpone of 1605: "Let me tell you: I am not, as your Lombard proverb saith, cold on my feet; or content to part with my commodities at a cheaper rate than I am accustomed: look not for it." Apparently Johnson learned the "Lombard proverb" from an Italian acquaintance and then used it in Volpone, which takes place in Italy. Professor McKenzie even discovered that the Italian phrase was still in use in Lombardy in the early part of the 20th century. Its figurative meaning in Italian was "to be without money". It is thought that the term moved, in English, from the "without money" meaning to "unwillingness to continue in some endeavor because one is out of money" (such as a poker game) to simply "unwillingness to proceed".

The only problem we can see with Professor McKenzie's explanation is that we don't know where the phrase went from 1605 to 1893. The latter year is when the phrase next appears in the English written record: "I knew this was the way it would be. They got cold feet" (Stephen Crane, Maggie: a Girl of the Streets).