cool
Language: English
Part of speech: adj
Pronunciation: enpr: ko͞ol
ipa: /kuːl/
ipa: /kul/
ipa: /kʉl/
note: Local Dublin
ipa: /kʲɪul/
note: Local Dublin
ipa: /kʲuːl/
note: working-class
ipa: /kʲeul/
rhymes: -uːl
Forms: form: cooler
form: coolest
form: c00l
form: coo
form: k00l
form: kewl
form: kool
form: qewl
form: qool
Etymology: From Middle English cool, from Old English cōl (“cool, cold, tranquil, calm”), from Proto-West Germanic *kōl(ī), from Proto-Germanic *kōlaz, *kōluz (“cool”), from Proto-Indo-European *gel- (“cold”).
Cognate with Saterland Frisian köil (“cool”), West Frisian koel (“cool”), Dutch koel (“cool”), Limburgish kool (“cool”), German Low German köhl (“cool”), German kühl (“cool”). Related to cold.
Senses: examples: text: I like cool weather the most 'cause it's not too hot to wear a jacket but I won't be too cold in my shorts.
text: The day was cool and snappy for August, and the Rise all green with a lavish nature. Now we plunged into a deep shade with the boughs lacing each other overhead, and crossed dainty, rustic bridges over the cold trout-streams, the boards giving back the clatter of our horses' feet:[…].
ref: 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter VIII, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC:
text: Many exoplanets have been found orbiting dwarf stars that are much cooler and smaller than our sun, such as the famed TRAPPIST-1 system and its seven planets, announced in 2017.
ref: 2023 November 29, Ashley Strickland, “Astronomers discover nearby six-planet solar system with ‘pristine configuration’”, in CNN:
synonyms: chilly
antonyms: lukewarm
tepid
warm
glosses: Of a mildly low temperature.
examples: text: Linen has made cool and breathable clothing for millennia.
text: Now that she had rested and had fed from the luncheon tray Mrs. Broome had just removed, she had reverted to her normal gaiety. She looked cool in a grey tailored cotton dress with a terracotta scarf and shoes and her hair a black silk helmet.
ref: 1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 2, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC:
glosses: Allowing or suggesting heat relief.
examples: text: If you have a reddish complexion, you should mainly wear cool colors.
antonyms: warm
glosses: Of a color, in the range of violet to green.
examples: text: Be cool. There's no need to panic.
synonyms: distant
phlegmatic
standoffish
unemotional
antonyms: passionate
glosses: Not showing emotion; calm and in control of oneself.
raw_tags: of a person
examples: text: His proposals had a cool reception.
synonyms: chilly
lukewarm
tepid
antonyms: warm
glosses: Unenthusiastic; lukewarm; skeptical.
examples: text: Its cool stare of familiarity was intolerable.
ref: 1850, Nathaniel Hawthorne, “Hester at her Needle”, in The Scarlet Letter, a Romance, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor, Reed, and Fields, →OCLC:
text: "Well, that's cool," said Laurie to himself, "to have a picnic and never ask me!"
ref: 1868, Louisa M[ay] Alcott, chapter 13, in Little Women: […], 1st part, Boston, Mass.: Roberts Brothers, published 1869, →OCLC:
glosses: Calmly audacious.
examples: text: Who will lend me a cool hundred.
ref: 1749, Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, volume (please specify |volume=I to VI), London: A[ndrew] Millar, […], →OCLC:
text: But she had wrote out a little coddleshell in her own hand a day or two afore the accident, leaving a cool four thousand to Mr. Matthew Pocket.
ref: 1860 December – 1861 August, Charles Dickens, chapter XVIII, in Great Expectations […], volume III, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published October 1861, →OCLC, page 303:
text: You remember Bulger, don't you? You lost a cool hundred to him one night here over the cards, eh?
ref: 1900, Dora Sigerson Shorter, Transmigration:
text: My father was talking to the World's Fair Commission yesterday, and they estimate it's going to cost a cool fifty million.
ref: 1944 November 28, Irving Brecher, Fred F. Finklehoffe, Meet Me in St. Louis, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer:
glosses: Applied facetiously to a sum of money, commonly as if to give emphasis to the largeness of the amount.
examples: text: […] while the coachman holding whip and reins in one hand, takes off his hat with the other, and resting it on his knees, pulls out his handkerchief, and wipes his forehead, partly because he has a habit of doing it, and partly because it's as well to shew the passengers how cool he is, and what an easy thing it is to drive four-in-hand, when you have had as much practice as he has.
ref: 1836 March – 1837 October, Charles Dickens, chapter 28, in The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1837, →OCLC, page 284:
text: Maggie the au pair, and Pam P. on the school bus and Billy G. with his Grateful Dead records were all deeply cool people. But they weren’t cool because they smoked. They smoked because they were cool.
ref: 2000, Malcolm Gladwell, The Tipping Point:
text: He managed to conduct interviews with the least cool global figure – his father, Prince Charles – and the most cool, Barack Obama, in a way that allowed them both to look as good as they could.
ref: 2017 December 27, “The Guardian view on Prince Harry: the monarchy’s best insurance policy”, in the Guardian:
text: Is there a secret sauce that helps explain why people as different as David Bowie, Samuel L. Jackson and Charli XCX all seem so self-assured and, well, cool? A new study suggests that there are six specific traits that these people tend to have in common: Cool people are largely perceived to be extroverted, hedonistic, powerful, adventurous, open and autonomous.
ref: 2025 June 30, Christina Caron, “What Makes Someone Cool? A New Study Offers Clues.”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC:
antonyms: awkward
uncool
glosses: Knowing what to do and how to behave; behaving with effortless and enviable style and panache; considered popular by others.
raw_tags: of a person
examples: 2008, Lou Schuler, "Foreward", in Nate Green, Built for Show, page xii
The fact that I was middle-aged, bald, married, and raising girls instead of chasing them didn't really bother me. Muscles are cool at any age.
synonyms: à la mode
fashionable
in fashion
modish
stylish
happening
hip
in
trendy
antonyms: démodé
old hat
out
out of fashion
glosses: Fashionable; trendy; hip.
examples: text: Is it cool if I sleep here tonight?
text: Now everything's cool, Drac's a part of the band / And my Monster Mash is the hit of the land / For you, the living, this Mash was meant too / When you get to my door, tell them Boris sent you.
ref: 1962, “Monster Mash”, Bobby "Boris" Pickett, Lenny Capizzi (lyrics), performed by Bobby (Boris) Pickett and The Crypt-Kickers:
synonyms: acceptable
all right
OK
antonyms: word: not cricket
word: not on
word: unacceptable
glosses: All right; acceptable; good.
examples: text: I think astronomy is really cool.
synonyms: awesome
neat
glosses: Very interesting or exciting.
examples: text: I'm completely cool with my girlfriend leaving me.
synonyms: easy
fine
not bothered
not fussed
antonyms: bothered
upset
glosses: Followed by with, able to tolerate.
examples: text: We're cool, right?
glosses: Of a pair of people, Having good relations.
Derived terms: be cool
before it was cool
blow one's cool
coola boola
coolamundo
cool and the gang
cool arrow
cool art
cool as a cucumber
cool bag
cool beans
cool box
coolbox
cool burn
cool cat
coolcation
cool center
cool chain
cool change
coolchest
cooldrink
coolen
cool flame
cool gray
cool grey
cool hand
cool head
cool-headed
coolheaded
cool-headedness
cool heads must prevail
cool heads prevail
cool heads will prevail
coolhouse
coolhunter
cool hunter
coolhunting
coolish
cool jazz
cool kid
cool kids' table
coolly
cool medium
coolness
cool-o-meter
coolometer
cool pop
cool pose
coolroom
coolsome
coolspeak
cool store
cool story bro
cool tankard
coolth
hypercool
ice cool
ice-cool
keep a cool head
keep one's cool
lose one's cool
megacool
outcool
overcool
radicool
supercool
tacticool
too cool for school
ubercool
ultracool
uncool
ur-cool
zero-cool