Deadly cold, lifeless. A key, on account of its coldness, is still sometimes employed to stop bleeding at the nose.
“Poor key-cold figure of a holy king!
Pale ashes of the house of Lancaster!
Thou bloodless remnant of that royal blood!”
Shakespeare: Richard III., i. 2.
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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.
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