To Put (Some One) on Ice

Hello, I was just hoping to learn the meaning and origin of the phrase "to put (some one) on ice". Thanks in advance for any assistance.

Over here in the UK, to put someone or something on ice means to put to one side, to decide to deal with the person or thing at a much later date. I suspect the idiom comes from the storage of food, where literally putting some perishable item on ice meant that you could indeed come back to it at a later stage.

PUT ON ICE - "Set aside; stored; kept in reserve until needed. The ice house or ice box, filled with blocks of ice cut from a lake or a river, predates the gas or electric refrigerator. People were putting food on blocks of ice a century ago to preserve it. The idea transferred readily to things other than food. Paul L. Ford offered this version in 'The Honorable Peter Stirling' : 'They say she's never been able to find a man good enough for her, so she's keeping herself on ice." From The Dictionary of Cliches by James Rogers (Ballantine Books, New York, 1985).

interesting, so far. Here, to "put someone on ice" or to "ice" someone means to do away with them, to kill them.

If you "ice" someone, you kill him. Refers to the chilling of the corpse. Gruesome, isn't it.

Where is here? Are you in the U.S., Britain or elsewhere? We're becoming an international group.

We are in the upper midwest of the US, still wrapped in the arms of winter... -10 degrees farenheit, "on ice" literally, lion still roaring... awaiting the lamb...

My son just informed me that in basketball one can "ice" a shooter at the free-throw line by calling a timeout, also a kicker in American football can be "put on ice" in the same manner. He is forced to contemplate the gravity of the situation.

I'm in Kentucky.

When I first found this site, I thought that I was a rarity being English, so I tailor my postings for the international readership more than I probably need to - so apologies for egg-suck teaching!

Agree with the above - 'on ice' was literally because before refridgeration, food was preserved using ice stored in an underground ice-house and put on the ice to chill it. it came to mean 'shelved' and precariously preserved, so that it needed to be resumed sooner rather than later.
I also agree with the killing use - a corpse would also sometimes be put
on ice to preserve it (slow down smelly putrification). So to 'ice' somebody is to make them a corpse.

anybody know how this forum came about?