water cooler

American  

noun

• water coolers
  plural

1. a container for holding drinking water that is cooled and drawn off by a faucet or spigot.

2. a drinking fountain in which water is cooled by mechanical refrigeration.

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water cooler British  

noun

1. a device for cooling and dispensing drinking water

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1. informal

   1. indicating the kind of informal conversation among office staff that takes place at such a dispenser

      water-cooler conversations

   2. indicating an event, television programme, etc, sufficiently controversial or otherwise noteworthy to provide subject matter for such conversations

      water-cooler television

      a water-cooler moment

Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• water coolers
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of water cooler

An Americanism dating back to 1840–50

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

water cooler

For younger viewers, the rewatch podcast simulates the old-school water cooler experience of talking about a show the day after it first aired.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 28, 2026

These aren’t even movies that you’d bring to the water cooler, lest you want a conversation with a coworker to fall flat after 10 seconds.

From Salon ● Sep. 2, 2026

"They want to make water cooler shows that bring audiences together."

From BBC ● Jul. 4, 2026

The 24-year-old’s colleagues are scattered across living rooms around the country, dealing in Slack messages and emails, but never chatting by the water cooler because, well, there isn’t one.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 29, 2026

When we at last reached the air-conditioned ranger station, we sagged into chairs next to the water cooler, drank down the cooler’s last half-gallon of water, and asked the ranger for another bottle.

From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond

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Related Words

• water fountain

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