1. The process of starting an engine or system from a completely powered-down state
   "Electric vehicles often have quicker cold starts than traditional cars"
    
2. (machine learning) the challenge of making recommendations or predictions for new users or items with no prior data
   "The recommender system struggled with the cold start problem for new users"

1. To start or initialize a system from a completely inactive state
   "We had to cold-start the reactor after the maintenance shutdown"

Derived forms: cold-started, cold starts, cold-starting, cold-starts

Encyclopedia: Cold start