cool
Americanadjective
-
cooler,
comparative
-
coolest
superlative
-
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)
-
cools,
present (3rd person singular)
-
cooled,
past participle, past
-
cooling
present participle
-
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)
-
cools,
present (3rd person singular)
-
cooled,
past participle, past
-
cooling
present participle
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 cลl; cognate with Middle Low German kลl, Old High German kuoli, German kรผhl; 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
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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:
It was a few years behind the times compared to Hollywood or Beverly Hills, where all the cool stuff that I wanted to do was usually happening.
From Los Angeles Times โ Oct. 16, 2026
Giving evidence, Natland said he wanted to look "cool" to his peers but it was just "bravado" and inside he was "terrified".
From BBC โ Oct. 16, 2026
On Sundays at the Los Feliz Three, they do something called “Sunday Print Edition” where they show a 35mm print and have somebody come and talk about it, which is always cool.
From Los Angeles Times โ Oct. 16, 2026
The first act, directed with cool precision by Ms. Kauffman, is terrific, as the tensions and frictions among the characters slowly build.
From The Wall Street Journal โ Oct. 15, 2026
None of that made me look particularly cool.
From "Bye Forever, I Guess" by Jodi Meadows
Duwai said Naidiri is now transplanting their heat-resistant corals to deeper, cooler waters close to the capital Suva to further protect from future heatwaves.
From Barron's โ Oct. 17, 2026
It may be cooler out today, but temperatures will warm back up to the high 80s by Thursday, according to National Weather Service forecasts.
From Los Angeles Times โ Oct. 14, 2026
However, a weather front will move slowly southwards taking rain across Scotland, Northern Ireland, northern England and north Wales and behind it things will start to turn cooler.
From BBC โ Oct. 13, 2026
U.S. natural gas futures settled higher for a fourth straight session as cooler weather forecasts favored early-season heating demand, which could limit storage builds for the remainder of the injection season.
From The Wall Street Journal โ Oct. 8, 2026
The air inside the mobile home was at least twenty degrees cooler than outside.
From "Healer of the Water Monster" by Brian Young
“Now, one of the coolest parts of the journey of building the company is getting to bring in and learn from people who have much more experience.”
From The Wall Street Journal โ Oct. 13, 2026
One of the reasons that he wanted to become a writer was that he just thought Rod Serling was the coolest guy on the planet.
From Salon โ Oct. 10, 2026
Driving "was the coolest stuff I got to do," she said.
From Barron's โ Oct. 8, 2026
“I hadn’t even stepped inside, but I could feel it—this place was different, and genuinely one of the coolest houses I had ever seen,” he writes.
From MarketWatch โ Sep. 9, 2026
Uncle Shelly is a cop, and he’s the coolest.
From "A Good Kind of Trouble" by Lisa Moore Ramรฉe
These rocks can form when magma cools underground or when volcanic material solidifies at the surface.
From Science Daily โ Sep. 30, 2026
The advice is to wait a few minutes before drinking so the beverage cools to a safer temperature.
From BBC โ Sep. 8, 2026
Faraday Future’s trajectory mirrors Tesla’s — they’re both tech-focused EV companies that are transitioning to AI and robotics as the EV market cools.
From Los Angeles Times โ Sep. 3, 2026
Even as the labor market cools, there’s still momentum when it comes to hiring for AI-related roles, and younger generations are the ones benefiting, LinkedIn says.
From The Wall Street Journal โ Aug. 18, 2026
His ardor eventually cools, especially since I ignore his passionate glances and pedal blithely on my way.
From "The Diary of a Young Girl" by Anne Frank
The situation reportedly had cooled by the time they went on the air.
From Los Angeles Times โ Oct. 15, 2026
Massive profit forecasts have helped chip makers dominate the stock market this year, but the trade has decidedly cooled down, for now.
From The Wall Street Journal โ Oct. 14, 2026
Superconductivity occurs when a metal can carry electricity with zero resistance after being cooled below a critical temperature.
From Science Daily โ Oct. 7, 2026
But the sums needed to lift them up the divisions have cooled that idea quickly, and it is not on the table today.
From BBC โ Oct. 6, 2026
Soon a nervous-looking woman with an explosive mop of carrot-red hair—Meggot—was escorting him belowdecks and smearing a thick, green ointment onto his hand, which cooled it and eased the pain.
From "Stardust" by Neil Gaiman
In May, Orbital raised $50 million to develop its new product: cooling systems that use more efficient, greener alternatives to the chemical cooling agents used in some data centers.
From The Wall Street Journal โ Oct. 15, 2026
The UAE is a big hub for data-center investment, but projects there have their own challenges, including reliable power, cooling, water availability, connectivity, building permits and the economics of the data center in question.
From MarketWatch โ Oct. 12, 2026
While electricity powers the centres, the water keeps the servers from frying - engineers deploy elaborate cooling systems, which consume a lot of water.
From BBC โ Oct. 12, 2026
"That finding shaped our choice of cooling configuration from the outset," with "advanced air cooling" chosen instead of water cooling.
From Barron's โ Oct. 11, 2026
In particular, our planet has experienced numerous cycles of cooling and warming.
From "Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind" by Yuval Noah Harari
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Get a wordDefinitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, ยฉ Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritageยฎ Idioms Dictionary copyright ยฉ 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
