go cold turkey

Inf. to stop (doing something) without tapering off. (Originally drug slang. Now concerned with breaking any habit.) I had to stop smoking, so I went cold turkey. It's awful! When heroin addicts go cold turkey, they get terribly sick.

go cold turkey

to suddenly and completely stop doing something, esp. a bad habit Finally she went cold turkey on a 23-year smoking habit and hasn't smoked since.

Usage notes: also used in the form quit cold turkey with the same meaning: The big organizations suddenly quit cold turkey, leaving the work to volunteers.

Common Names:

Name	Pronounced	Usage
Stanimir	-	Bulgarian, Russian, Serbian, Medieval Slavic
AngÉLa	-	Hungarian
Robert	RAH-bərt (English), ro-BER (French), RO-bert (German), RO-bərt (Dutch), RAW-bert (Polish), RO-byert (Russian), RO-beert (Russian)	English, French, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, German, Dutch, Czech, Slovak, Polish, Russian, Slovene,
Narciso	nahr-CHEE-so (Italian), nahr-THEE-so (Spanish), nahr-SEE-so (Latin American Spanish)	Italian, Spanish, Portuguese
Hermenegild	her-ME-ne-gilt	German
Christianne	-	English (Rare)