cool
Americanadjective
-
moderately cold; neither warm nor cold.
a rather cool evening.
- Antonyms:
- warm
-
feeling comfortably or moderately cold.
I'm perfectly cool, but open the window if you feel hot.
-
imparting a sensation of moderate coldness or comfortable freedom from heat.
a cool breeze.
- Antonyms:
- warm
-
permitting such a sensation.
a cool dress.
- Antonyms:
- warm
-
not excited; calm; composed; under control.
to remain cool in the face of disaster.
- Synonyms:
- quiet, placid, unruffled, self-possessed, collected
-
not hasty; deliberate.
a cool and calculated action.
-
lacking in interest or enthusiasm.
a cool reply to an invitation.
- Antonyms:
- warm
-
lacking in warmth or cordiality.
a cool reception.
- Antonyms:
- warm
-
calmly audacious or impudent.
a cool lie.
-
aloof or unresponsive; indifferent.
He was cool to her passionate advances.
-
unaffected by emotions; disinterested; dispassionate.
She made a cool appraisal of all the issues in the dispute.
-
Informal. (of a number or sum) without exaggeration or qualification.
a cool million dollars.
-
(of colors) with green, blue, or violet predominating.
-
Slang.
-
great; fine; excellent.
a real cool comic.
-
characterized by great facility; highly skilled or clever.
cool maneuvers on the parallel bars.
-
socially adept.
It's not cool to arrive at a party too early.
-
acceptable; satisfactory; okay.
If you want to stay late, that's cool.
-
adverb
interjection
noun
-
something that is cool; a cool part, place, time, etc..
in the cool of the evening.
-
coolness.
-
calmness; composure; poise.
an executive noted for maintaining her cool under pressure.
verb (used without object)
-
to become cool (sometimes followed by down oroff ).
The soup cooled in five minutes. We cooled off in the mountain stream.
-
to become less ardent, cordial, etc.; become moderate.
verb (used with object)
verb phrase
-
cool off to become calmer or more reasonable.
Wait until he cools off before you talk to him again.
-
cool down. see cooldown.
-
cool out to calm or settle down; relax.
cooling out at the beach.
adjective
-
moderately cold
a cool day
-
comfortably free of heat
a cool room
-
producing a pleasant feeling of coldness
a cool shirt
-
able to conceal emotion; calm
a cool head
-
lacking in enthusiasm, affection, cordiality, etc
a cool welcome
-
calmly audacious or impudent
-
informal (esp of numbers, sums of money, etc) without exaggeration; actual
a cool ten thousand
-
(of a colour) having violet, blue, or green predominating; cold
-
(of jazz) characteristic of the late 1940s and early 1950s, economical and rhythmically relaxed
-
informal sophisticated or elegant, esp in an unruffled way
-
informal excellent; marvellous
adverb
noun
-
coolness
the cool of the evening
-
slang calmness; composure (esp in the phrases keep or lose one's cool )
-
slang unruffled elegance or sophistication
verb
-
to make or become cooler
-
to lessen the intensity of (anger or excitement) or (of anger or excitement) to become less intense; calm down
-
slang (usually imperative) to calm down; take it easy
-
to wait or be kept waiting
Synonym Usage
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
-
coolingnessnoun
-
coolnessnoun
-
overcoolnessnoun
-
recoolverb
-
subcoolverb (used with object)
-
coolishadjective
-
overcooladjective
-
ultracooladjective
-
uncooledadjective
-
well-cooledadjective
-
coolinglyadverb
-
coollyadverb
-
overcoollyadverb
Inflected Forms
Adjectives
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
coolsimple
-
coolssimple
-
have cooledperfect
-
has cooledperfect
-
am coolingprogressive
-
are coolingprogressive
-
is coolingprogressive
-
have been coolingperfect progressive
-
has been coolingperfect progressive
Past
-
cooledsimple
-
had cooledperfect
-
was coolingprogressive
-
were coolingprogressive
-
had been coolingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of cool
First recorded before 1000; Middle English col, coul, Old English cōl; cognate with Middle Low German kōl, Old High German kuoli, German kühl; see cold, chill
Explanation
When the weather is cool, it's not quite cold but not warm either. When people are cool, they're mellow and in control. Cool has many meanings. When the weather goes from 70 degrees to 50, it cooled off. A winning pool player who starts losing also cools off. Drinking lemonade on a hot day is yet another way to cool off. When you lose your temper, you lose your cool. Hot cookies should cool before you eat them. Something fashionable is cool, but if you're cool to an idea, you're not so sure about it. Any situation that becomes less intense has cooled.
Vocabulary lists containing cool
Words for Cheese Writers
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Visual Arts - Introductory
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Visual Arts - High School
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
OK cool, but I’m not memorizing a dozen names.
From Slate ● Jul. 16, 2026
But it could only be a brief cool down because high pressure is currently forecast to build back over the UK again next week.
From BBC ● Jul. 15, 2026
Wholesale prices dropped last month, with June’s decline in energy prices helping to cool down the prices charged by producers.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 15, 2026
Conditions are expected to cool off by 5 to 7 degrees on Thursday and then return to nearly normal by Friday, Wofford said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 15, 2026
It’s cool, but sunny, so I get a couple of chairs and a blanket for Bubbe, and we sit side by side in the sunshine.
From "Code Name Kingfisher" by Liz Kessler
“One of the cooler moments I’ve ever been a part of on the baseball field,” Freeman said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 15, 2026
When the temperature difference diminishes between the warmer western Pacific and the cooler eastern Pacific, the typical east-to-west trade winds decrease even further.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 13, 2026
Jay Ternavan, founder of JayWay Travel, said more Americans are interested in summer vacations to Scandinavia, where temperatures are cooler.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 12, 2026
Dominic typically opts for reds from cooler climates like Austria or Germany.
From BBC ● Jul. 12, 2026
Coach Quinn pulled out a large cooler from the back of her truck.
From "The Missing Mitt (The Hardy Boys: Secret Files, #2)" by Franklin W. Dixon
MT: How do you feel about Gen X’s legacy as basically the coolest generation?
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 25, 2026
Apps can show commuters the coolest way to work, not just the fastest.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 24, 2026
"Feels like" temperatures may be even more noteworthy during the overnight period, when it may feel like 27C even at the coolest part of the night.
From BBC ● Jun. 24, 2026
He noted that he wanted his Futurecave to become “the coolest house ever built.”
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 22, 2026
“I get it. You’re very, very cool. You’re the coolest girl I’ve ever met.”
From "The Miseducation of Cameron Post" by emily m. danforth
Inside a climate-controlled chamber, a standard fridge is fitted with sensors and filled with gel blocks to measure how evenly it cools.
From BBC ● Jul. 2, 2026
Even when using the same mold, color can vary from batch to batch, and how it cools also affects the result.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 1, 2026
Analysts at 22V Research said in a recent report that the valuation gap should narrow a bit going forward as they expect longer term bond yields to slide as the economy cools slightly.
From Barron's ● Jun. 30, 2026
But some economists say a productivity boom only cools prices if it arrives as a surprise.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 19, 2026
It never cools the room much, but when there's no electricity and it can't even move a tiny bit of air, I feel like a grain of rice boiling in my own sweat.
From "Born Behind Bars" by Padma Venkatraman
China’s economic growth cooled more than expected in the second quarter of the year despite robust exports, as local governments and households pulled back spending.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 15, 2026
Ducted air con: These systems are designed to serve the entire home, with a central unit pushing cooled air through a network of ducting, with vents in each room.
From BBC ● Jul. 9, 2026
Superconductors allow electric current to flow without losing energy, but only when cooled to extremely low temperatures where quantum effects emerge.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 7, 2026
When players cooled themselves with cold drinks and icy towels during short breaks and took longer halftimes, their core temperatures and cardiovascular strain lowered considerably more than they did after only passive breaks, Brown wrote.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 7, 2026
Which meant he was right and she’d come back after she cooled off.
From "P.S. Be Eleven" by Rita Williams-Garcia
Official data released this week showed consumer inflation at 3.5 percent in June, cooling from May's reading on lower energy prices amid hopes of a US-Iran deal.
From Barron's ● Jul. 15, 2026
Fresh signs of cooling U.S. inflation revived demand for Treasurys, pushing yields down.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 15, 2026
Rahmstorf accepts that global warming could soften the cooling effect in average temperatures.
From BBC ● Jul. 14, 2026
But he tied that to inflation cooling over the second half of the year.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 13, 2026
I bustled myself inside, and soon there were four chokecherry pies cooling on the kitchen table—if it were possible to cool in this blamed heat.
From "Hattie Big Sky" by Kirby Larson
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
