cool
Part of speech: adj
noun
verb
Morphological type: simple
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 *kalaną (“to be cold, to freeze”), Proto-Indo-European *gel- (“to be cold, to freeze”).
Cognates
Cognate with North Frisian kuul, kölj (“cold”), Saterland Frisian köil (“cool”), West Frisian koel (“cool”), Cimbrian khuul (“chilly, cool”), Dutch koel (“cool”), German kühl (“cool”), Low German köhl (“cool”), Luxembourgish kill (“cool”), Vilamovian kił (“cool”); also Latin gelū, gelum, gelus (“frost; chill, cold”), Belarusian хо́лад (xólad, “cold”), Bulgarian хлад (hlad, “chill, coolness”), Czech chlad (“cold”), Macedonian лад (lad, “shade; coolness”), Polish chłód (“cold”), Russian and Ukrainian хо́лод (xólod, “cold”), Serbo-Croatian хла̑д, hlȃd (“shade”), Sanskrit जड (jaḍa, “cold; stiff”), जल (jala, “water”). Related to cold.
Inflected forms:
form: cooler
pos: adj
tags: comparative
form: coolest
pos: adj
tags: superlative
form: c00l
pos: adj
tags: alternative
slang
form: coo
pos: adj
tags: alternative
slang
form: k00l
pos: adj
tags: alternative
slang
form: kewl
pos: adj
tags: alternative
slang
form: kool
pos: adj
tags: alternative
slang
form: qewl
pos: adj
tags: alternative
slang
form: qool
pos: adj
tags: alternative
slang
form: coole
pos: adj
tags: alternative
obsolete
form: c00l
pos: noun
tags: alternative
slang
form: coo
pos: noun
tags: alternative
slang
form: k00l
pos: noun
tags: alternative
slang
form: kewl
pos: noun
tags: alternative
slang
form: kool
pos: noun
tags: alternative
slang
form: qewl
pos: noun
tags: alternative
slang
form: qool
pos: noun
tags: alternative
slang
form: coole
pos: noun
tags: alternative
obsolete
form: cools
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: cooling
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: cooled
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: cooled
pos: verb
tags: past
form: c00l
pos: verb
tags: alternative
slang
form: coo
pos: verb
tags: alternative
slang
form: k00l
pos: verb
tags: alternative
slang
form: kewl
pos: verb
tags: alternative
slang
form: kool
pos: verb
tags: alternative
slang
form: qewl
pos: verb
tags: alternative
slang
form: qool
pos: verb
tags: alternative
slang
form: coole
pos: verb
tags: alternative
obsolete
Senses:
gloss: Of a mildly low temperature.
pos: adj
examples: 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.
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:[…].
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.
gloss: Allowing or suggesting heat relief.
pos: adj
examples: Linen has made cool and breathable clothing for millennia.
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.
gloss: Of a color, in the range of violet to green.
pos: adj
examples: If you have a reddish complexion, you should mainly wear cool colors.
gloss: Not showing emotion; calm and in control of oneself.
pos: adj
examples: Be cool. There's no need to panic.
gloss: Unenthusiastic; lukewarm; skeptical.
pos: adj
examples: His proposals had a cool reception.
gloss: Calmly audacious.
pos: adj
tags: obsolete
examples: Its cool stare of familiarity was intolerable.
In that supposed event, you say, you will destroy the Union; and then, you say, the great crime of having destroyed it will be upon us! That is cool.
"Well, that's cool," said Laurie to himself, "to have a picnic and never ask me!"
gloss: Applied facetiously to a sum of money, commonly as if to give emphasis to the largeness of the amount.
pos: adj
examples: Who will lend me a cool hundred.
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.
You remember Bulger, don't you? You lost a cool hundred to him one night here over the cards, eh?
My father was talking to the World's Fair Commission yesterday, and they estimate it's going to cost a cool fifty million.
gloss: Knowing what to do and how to behave; behaving with effortless and enviable style and panache; considered popular by others.
pos: adj
tags: informal
examples: […] 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.
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.
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.
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.
gloss: Fashionable; trendy; hip.
pos: adj
tags: informal
examples: You be nice without long hair. Now it's cool, hmm?
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.
gloss: All right; acceptable; good.
pos: adj
tags: informal
examples: Is it cool if I sleep here tonight?
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.
gloss: Very interesting or exciting.
pos: adj
tags: informal
examples: I think astronomy is really cool.
gloss: Followed by with: able to tolerate.
pos: adj
tags: informal
examples: I'm completely cool with my girlfriend leaving me.
gloss: Of a pair of people, Having good relations.
pos: adj
tags: informal
examples: We're cool, right?
gloss: A moderate or refreshing state of cold; moderate temperature of the air between hot and cold; coolness.
pos: noun
tags: uncountable
examples: in the cool of the morning
gloss: A calm temperament.
pos: noun
tags: uncountable
gloss: The property of being cool, popular or in fashion.
pos: noun
tags: uncountable
gloss: To lose heat, to get colder.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
literally
examples: I like to let my tea cool before drinking it so I don't burn my tongue.
gloss: To make cooler, less warm.
pos: verb
tags: literally
transitive
examples: Send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue.
gloss: To become less intense, e.g. less amicable or passionate.
pos: verb
tags: figuratively
intransitive
examples: Relations cooled between the USA and the USSR after 1980.
gloss: To make less intense, e.g. less amicable or passionate.
pos: verb
tags: figuratively
transitive
examples: We have reason to cool our raging motions, our carnal stings, our unbitted lusts.
gloss: To kill, murder.
pos: verb
tags: dated
slang
transitive
examples: Maybe he would die. That would mean I had murdered him. I smiled, trying the idea on for size. One of the things that always had cheesed me a little was that I had no kills to my credit. I'd been in plenty of rumbles, but somehow, I'd never cooled anyone. Well maybe now I had my first one. I couldn't feel very proud of skulling an old man, but at least I could say that I'd scored. That was a big kick.
Big-mouth got up as fast as he could, and I was thinking how much heart he had. But I ran toward him like my life depended on it; I wanted to cool him.
gloss: To relax, hang out.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
slang
examples: Seen my homeboys coolin' way way out / Told 'em bout my mornin' cold bugged' em out
"What up, kid?" ¶ "Coolin'."
Asbestos? Raa, dat's a dangerous t'ing boy, dat ain't good. You know what though, you guys should min' yourselves walkin' street star, dere's bere nutters about. I know you're in a crew but boy can't you jus' cool' at someone's house?'
Derived words: 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
cool hunter
coolhunter
coolhunting
coolish
cool jazz
cool kid
cool kids' table
coolly
cool medium
coolness
coolometer
cool-o-meter
cool pop
cool pose
coolroom
Cool S
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
radicool
supercool
tacticool
too cool for school
ubercool
ultracool
uncool
ur-cool
zero-cool
overcool
aftercool
coolable
coolant
cool down
cooler
cooling
cooling card
cooling center
cool it
cool off
cool one's heels
cool one's jets
cool out
hydrocool
intercool
keep one's breath to cool one's porridge
precool
recool
save one's breath to cool one's porridge
self-cooling
sodium-cooled
subcool
undercool
Translations:
lang: Dutch
word: afkoelen
lang: Dutch
word: koelen
lang: Dutch
word: verkoelen
lang: Dutch
word: verkillen
lang: Finnish
word: viilentää
lang: Russian
word: охлажда́ть
roman: oxlaždátʹ
lang: Russian
word: охлади́ть
roman: oxladítʹ
lang: Slovak
word: upokojiť
lang: Slovak
word: upokojovať