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In this paper we compare the metaphorical representation of heat in Spanish and Swedish by investigating noun – adjective collocations in corpora in both languages. The metaphorical projections of heat onto various target domains are investigated. Differences and similarities are identified at both the linguistic and conceptual level. This is explained by the cultural models that govern language and thought. In the paper we show that several meanings (or aspects of meaning) are activated at once when metaphors are used, but usually one (or more) is more salient than the others, e.g. in the cases of patata caliente in Spanish and hetluft in Swedish.