Language tip of the week: friendly

In this weekly post, we bring more useful content from the Macmillan Dictionary to English language learners. In this series of language tips we look at how metaphor is used to express some common concepts in English. This week’s tip looks at metaphors used to talk about being friendly:

A friendly relationship between people is like warm, sunny weather. When people are unfriendly towards one another, it is like cold weather.

They greeted us warmly when we arrived.
They are very warm-hearted/cold-hearted people.
I didn’t like him at first, but I soon warmed to him.
She has a sunny disposition.
Their friendly greetings were met with a frosty silence.
We were given a rather chilly reception.
He stared at us coldly.
She treated us with cool indifference.
The other two girls began to freeze her out.
Observers have noted a thaw in Franco-American relations.