cold
For about a month now we have had solid cold—firm, business-like cold that stalked in and took charge of the countryside as a brisk housewife might take charge of someone else’s kitchen in an emergency.
“Cold Weather,” in One Man’s Meat (New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1944), 346.
Nothing is more incisive than extreme cold. As we now cut iron with an acetylene torch, some day when we shall have completely harnessed the cold, tools will be unnecessary and we’ll saw wood with a blade of cold.
Sens-Plastique (Los Angeles: Green Integer, 2008), 123.