"Me levanto a las siete de la mañana con un frío de perros."
What is the meaning of "un frío de perros"?
The author is from Chile, but lived in Catalonia, Spain. I don't know if it is a regional idiom.
En España dentro de frases hechas muchas veces se utliza el "de perros" para referirse a algo molesto.
- Hace un tiempo de perros (tiempo malo) , hace un frío de perros(mucho frío), he tenido un día de perros(un mal día), tener un humor de perros(estar de mal humor).
En relación a la frase que comentas para decir mucho frío, comentarte que quizás la que tiene un uso más extendido sea la de "hace un frío que pela".
Gracias todos! I loved reading all of the responses. Learning the expressions and idioms used in a given language, in different parts of the world, really helps the language to come alive. And helps students like me to not sound like they learned all of their language from a textbook! So thank you again!
That expression means "the temperature is very cold".
I would add to what has been already said that we also use this expression in Italian and we have a slightly different variation in French. So it is definitely not only a regional idiom.
- Italian "fa un freddo cane", correspond to the spanish un frío de perros.
- French "il fait un froid de canard", same thing, with the differenc that instead of "perro", the sentence refers to "pato" (canard).
I found this interesting link which explains where the expression should come from (sorry, is in spanish).
It's an idiom for describing how extremely cold the subject is. It's like how in English we have an idiom that goes by "Looks that can kill" to describe how attractive someone might be.
