Word.ws English Dictionary

cool

/kuːl/US/kul/

cool adjective: of a mildly low temperature.

cool: of a mildly low temperature
Image: Original by Maulucioni Vectorization by Guypeter4, based, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Adjective

cool (comparative cooler, superlative coolest)

  1. Of a mildly low temperature.
    • 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:[…].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
    Synonyms:
    chilly
    Antonyms:
    lukewarm, tepid, warm
  2. Allowing or suggesting heat relief.
    • 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.1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 2, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC
  3. Of a color, in the range of violet to green.
    • If you have a reddish complexion, you should mainly wear cool colors.
    Antonyms:
    warm
  4. Not showing emotion; calm and in control of oneself.
    • Be cool. There's no need to panic.
    Antonyms:
    passionate
  5. Unenthusiastic; lukewarm; skeptical.
    • His proposals had a cool reception.
    Synonyms:
    chilly, lukewarm, tepid
    Antonyms:
    warm
  6. (obsolete) Calmly audacious.
    • Its cool stare of familiarity was intolerable.1850, Nathaniel Hawthorne, “Hester at her Needle”, in The Scarlet Letter, a Romance, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor, Reed, and Fields, →OCLC
    • 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.1860 February 27, Abe Lincoln, Cooper Union address
  7. Applied facetiously to a sum of money, commonly as if to give emphasis to the largeness of the amount.
    • Who will lend me a cool hundred.1749, Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, volume (please specify |volume=I to VI), London: A[ndrew] Millar, […], →OCLC
    • 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.1860 December – 1861 August, Charles Dickens, chapter XVIII, in Great Expectations […], volume III, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published October 1861, →OCLC, page 303
  8. (informal) Knowing what to do and how to behave; behaving with effortless and enviable style and panache; considered popular by others.
    • […] 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...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
    • 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.2000, Malcolm Gladwell, The Tipping Point
    Antonyms:
    awkward, uncool
  9. (informal) Fashionable; trendy; hip.
    • You be nice without long hair. Now it's cool, hmm?1953, Dalton Trumbo, Ian McLellan Hunter, John Dighton, Roman Holiday, spoken by Mario Delani (Paolo Carlini)
    • 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.2008, Lou Schuler, "Foreward", in Nate Green, Built for Show, page xii
  10. (informal) All right; acceptable; good.
    • 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.1962, “Monster Mash”, Bobby "Boris" Pickett, Lenny Capizzi (lyrics), performed by Bobby (Boris) Pickett and The Crypt-Kickers
    Synonyms:
    acceptable, all right, OK
  11. (informal) Very interesting or exciting.
    • I think astronomy is really cool.
    Synonyms:
    awesome, neat
  12. (informal) Followed by with: able to tolerate.
    • I'm completely cool with my girlfriend leaving me.
    Synonyms:
    easy, fine, not bothered, not fussed
    Antonyms:
    bothered, upset
  13. (informal) Of a pair of people, Having good relations.
    • We're cool, right?

Noun (1)

cool (uncountable)

  1. A moderate or refreshing state of cold; moderate temperature of the air between hot and cold; coolness.
    • in the cool of the morning
  2. A calm temperament.
    Synonyms:
    calmness, composure
  3. The property of being cool, popular or in fashion.

Verb

cool (third-person singular simple present cools, present participle cooling, simple past and past participle cooled)

  1. (intransitive, literally) To lose heat, to get colder.
    • I like to let my tea cool before drinking it so I don't burn my tongue.
    Synonyms:
    cool down
    Antonyms:
    warm, warm up, heat, heat up
  2. (literally, transitive) To make cooler, less warm.
    • Send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue.1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Luke 16:24
    Antonyms:
    warm, warm up, heat, heat up
  3. (figuratively, intransitive) To become less intense, e.g. less amicable or passionate.
    • Relations cooled between the USA and the USSR after 1980.
  4. (figuratively, transitive) To make less intense, e.g. less amicable or passionate.
    • We have reason to cool our raging motions, our carnal stings, our unbitted lusts.c. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Othello, the Moore of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac...
  5. (dated, slang, transitive) To kill, murder.
    • 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...1965, "Sex Jungle" (narrated in Perversion for Profit)
    • 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.1967, Piri Thomas, Down These Mean Streets, New York, N.Y.: Alfred A. Knopf, page 31
  6. (intransitive, slang, African-American Vernacular) To relax, hang out.
    • Seen my homeboys coolin' way way out / Told 'em bout my mornin' cold bugged' em out1986, “6 in the Mornin'”performed by Ice-T
    • "What up, kid?" ¶ "Coolin'."2000, Paul Beatty, Tuff: A Novel, New York, N.Y.: Anchor Books, published 2001, →ISBN, page 223
    Synonyms:
    bool

Noun (2)

cool (plural cools)

  1. (Ireland, archaic) A measure of butter, usually around 40lb; a container holding such an amount of butter.
    • Father Conmee saluted Mr William Gallagher and perceived the odours that came from baconflitches and ample cools of butter.1922 February 2, James Joyce, “[Episode 10: Wandering Rocks]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company […], →OCLC, part II [Odyssey], page 212

Proper noun (1) capitalized: Cool

Cool (plural Cools)

  1. A surname.
    1. (abbreviation, ellipsis) Ellipsis of McCool; a surname from Irish, anglicized form of McCool.
  2. A town in El Dorado County, California, United States; named for preacher Aaron Cool.
    • The outage area continues to expand, stretching from Granite Bay, Newcastle, Loomis, and Auburn across Folsom Lake to Cool, and north through Colfax into Lake of the Pines.2026 June 20, Erin Heft, “Massive PG&E power outage leaves approximately 61,000 customers in the dark across Placer County”, in KCRA, archived from the original on 20 Jun 2026
  3. A town in Parker County, Texas, United States.

Proper noun (2) capitalized: COOL

COOL

  1. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of CLIPS Object-Oriented Language.

cool meaning in Marathi, Bengali, Arabic and Indonesian

cool in Marathi

having a slightly low temperature
थंड thaṇḍa

cool in Bengali

colloquial: knowing how to behave; considered popular
জোস jōs
colloquial: in fashion
জোস jōs

cool in Arabic

having a slightly low temperature
بَارِد bārid
to make colder (literally)
يُبَرِّد yubarrid

cool in Indonesian

having a slightly low temperature
sejuk
colloquial: knowing how to behave; considered popular
keren
colloquial: all right, acceptable
keren
More languagesFewer languages
cool in Persian
خنک xonak
cool in Thai
เย็น yen, เจ๋ง jěng
cool in Vietnamese
mát, mát mẻ
cool in Myanmar
အေး e:

Examples of cool in a sentence

  • 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 2017.2023 November 29, Ashley Strickland, “Astronomers discover nearby six-planet solar system with ‘pristine configuration’”, in CNN:
  • "Well, that's cool," said Laurie to himself, "to have a picnic and never ask me!"1868, Louisa M[ay] Alcott, chapter 13, in Little Women: […], 1st part, Boston, Mass.: Roberts Brothers, published 1869, →OCLC:
  • You lost a cool hundred to him one night here over the cards, eh?1900, Dora Sigerson Shorter, Transmigration:
  • My father was talking to the World's Fair Commission yesterday, and they estimate it's going to cost a cool fifty million.1944 November 28, Irving Brecher, Fred F. Finklehoffe, Meet Me in St. Louis, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer:

All 40 example sentences with cool

Synonyms of cool

22 more synonymsFewer synonyms

Antonyms

8 more antonymsFewer antonyms

All synonyms and antonyms of cool

Forms of cool

Adjective
comparativecooler
superlativecoolest
alternative Internetc00l
alternative Internetk00l
alternative Internetkewl
alternative Internetkool
alternative Internetqewl
alternative Internetqool
alternative form (slang)coo
alternative form (obsolete)coole
Verb
third-person singular presentcools
present participlecooling
past participlecooled
pastcooled
Noun
pluralcools
Proper noun
pluralCools

Past tense of cool: cooled

Origin of cool

From Middle English cool, from Old English cōl (“cool, cold, tranquil, calm”), from Proto-West Germanic *kōl(ī), from Proto-Germanic *kōluz (“cool”), from *kalaną (“to be cold, to freeze”), Proto-Indo-European *gel- (“to be cold, to freeze”). Cognates Cognate with North Frisian kool, koul, kuul, kölj, kööl (“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.

From Middle English colen, from Old English cōlian (“to cool, grow cold, be cold”), from Proto-West Germanic *kōlēn (“to become cold”), from Proto-Indo-European *gel- (“to freeze”). Cognate with Dutch koelen (“to cool”), German kühlen (“to cool”), Swedish kyla (“to cool, refrigerate”). Also partially from Middle English kelen, from Old English cēlan (“to cool, be cold, become cold”), from Proto-West Germanic *kōlijan, from Proto-Germanic *kōlijaną (“to cool”), altered to resemble the adjective cool. See keel.

Alteration of cowl.

Words formed from cool

Phrases with cool

44 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with cool

42 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about cool

What does cool mean?
Cool means of a mildly low temperature.
What is cool in Marathi?
Cool in Marathi is थंड (thaṇḍa). See Cool meaning in Marathi.
How do you use cool in a sentence?
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.
What part of speech is cool?
Cool can be an adjective, a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce cool?
Cool is pronounced /kuːl/ (UK).

Words near cool in the dictionary

  1. cookware
  2. cookwares
  3. cookwear
  4. cooky
  5. cookying
  6. cool
  7. cool and the gang
  8. cool arrow
  9. cool arrows
  10. cool art
  11. cool as a cucumber

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: cool (page history and authors); Cool (page history and authors); COOL (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-cool.wav.

Cite this entry: “cool.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/cool. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.