cool down
Idioms-
Also, cool off.
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Effect a lower temperature, especially of the body following vigorous exercise. For example, After a race the coach makes the entire team do stretches to cool down , or Let's take a dip to cool off . These phrases date from a.d. 1000 with reference to the weather or cooking (as in First let the eggs cool off ). The first gained renewed currency with the exercise boom of the late 1900s.
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See cool off , def. 2.
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.
You might go out to work and let the house cool down; then return home and fire up the furnace.
From BBC • Mar. 22, 2026
Traditionally, scientists believed the tin nucleus simply released neutrons to cool down, effectively losing any trace of the earlier beta decay event.
From Science Daily • Mar. 13, 2026
After a week of unseasonably warm weather, conditions are expected to cool down Friday, with possible showers over the Ventura and Santa Barbara county mountains through the evening, the weather service said.
From Los Angeles Times • Feb. 6, 2026
“Instead of buying hand over fist, China may cool down a little bit,” said Denton Cinquegrana, chief oil analyst at OPIS, which, like The Wall Street Journal, is owned by Dow Jones.
From The Wall Street Journal • Jan. 18, 2026
It took longer to reach our great-aunt and cousin but we needed to cool down.
From "Gone Crazy in Alabama" by Rita Williams-Garcia
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.
