Coldwave
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A European style of post-punk music in the 1980s. uncountable
"Band member Azzedine Amrani reflects: “[…] Then, The Cure came to our ears; therefore we started to turn into coldwave music with brand new instruments [such as keyboards and drum machines]^([sic]).”"
- 2 The industrial metal music genre in the 1990s. US, uncountable
"Modern industrial music subgenres and fusion-genres include EBM, futurepop, power-noise, aggrotech (terror-EBM), coldwave, elektro, dark-electro, and industrial-metal. Yes, it can be quite confusing."
Example
More examples"Band member Azzedine Amrani reflects: “[…] Then, The Cure came to our ears; therefore we started to turn into coldwave music with brand new instruments [such as keyboards and drum machines]^([sic]).”"
Etymology
From cold + wave, perhaps influenced by earlier genres such as new wave and darkwave. In France the post-punk genre was called la vague froide.
Related phrases
More for "coldwave"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.