pour cold water on
B2CEFR level
40/100Rarity: uncommon
NeutralRegister
To be discouraging about something, such as a plan or idea, and to dampen enthusiasm for it.
I hate to pour cold water on your proposal, but we simply don't have the budget this year.
Rarity runs from 0 (a word everyone knows) to 100 (almost never seen outside specialist or literary writing). Level is the word's real difficulty on the CEFR scale, from A1 to C2.
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