coo

Noun (1)

coo (plural coos)

1. The murmuring sound made by a dove or pigeon.
   • The male [ring dove] will continue nest-coos for 3–4 days until his female partner begins to nest-coo. At that point the male's nest-coo begins to become less frequent[…].1979, Mei-Fang Cheng, “Progress and Prospects in Ring Dove Research: A Personal View”, in Jay S[eth] Rosenblatt, Robert A[ubrey] Hinde, Colin Beer, Marie-Claire Busnel, editors, Advances in the Study...
2. (figuratively) An expression of pleasure made by a person.
   • An infant has only cries and coos with which to communicate distress and well-being. Adults have many more ways of expressing themselves. However, their expressions of disease and ease can be boiled down to sophisticated cries and coos. A call for help in whatever form is a cry. A sense of...2001, Denton L. Roberts, Caddy Roberts-Williams, “What You Need to Know to Be Useful”, in Living as Healer: (Everyone Does Therapy and Should … Know How), Pasadena, Calif.: Hope Publishing House...

Verb

coo (third-person singular simple present coos, present participle cooing, simple past and past participle cooed)

1. (ambitransitive) To make a soft murmuring sound, similar to a dove or pigeon.
   • No birds, except as birds of paſſage, flew, / No bee was known to hum, no dove to coo.1763, C[harles] Churchill, The Prophecy of Famine. A Scots Pastoral, 2nd edition, London: Printed for the author, and sold by G. Kearsly, in Ludgate-street, →OCLC, page 15
   • DUET—MAYOR and MAUD. […] Like a Dove I'll coo and bill, pretty Maud, / I will not coo and bill, Mr. Mayor.[1784?], [John] O'Keeffe, Songs, Duets, and Chorusses, in the New Musical Farce of Peeping Tom of Coventry. As Performed at the Theatre Royal, [London?]: [s.n.], →OCLC, page 4
2. (intransitive) To speak in an admiring fashion, to be enthusiastic about.
   • They were too busy cooing over the baby and his parents were too busy cooing over each other.2013, Nicola Cornick, chapter 14, in One Night with the Laird (Harlequin HQN Historical Romance), Don Mills, Ont.: Harlequin HQN, →ISBN

Interjection

1. An expression of approval, surprise, etc.
   • I stood outside the door for a space, letting "I dare not" wait upon "I would", as Jeeves tells me cats do in adages, then turned the handle softly, pushed – also softly – and, carrying on into the interior, found myself confronted by a girl in housemaid's costume who put a hand to her throat like...1960, P[elham] G[renville] Wodehouse, chapter VII, in Jeeves in the Offing, London: Herbert Jenkins, →OCLC
   • The last track on each of the three sections is a professional course, where you can customise your bike by changing the tyres and the size of chainwheel. Coo!1988 November, Sean Kelly, “Professional BMX Simulator”, in Teresa Maughan, editor, Your Sinclair, number 35 (video game review), London: Sportscene Specialist Press, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the...

Noun (2) capitalized: COO

COO (plural COOs)

1. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of chief operating officer.
   • Atsme similarly protested when editors sought to portray Trump as racist by referring to a reconstructed and uncorroborated conversation in a book by a former COO at one of Trump’s companies, which attributes to Trump defamatory and racist remarks against black people.2024 August 29, Ashley Rindsberg, “How Wikipedia Launders Regime Propaganda”, in Pirate Wires, archived from the original on 29 Aug 2024
2. (abbreviation, initialism, international trade) Initialism of country of origin.