Word.ws English Dictionary

cool as a cucumber

cool as a cucumber adjective: calm and composed even in difficult or frustrating situations; self-possessed.

Adjective

cool as a cucumber (not comparable)

  1. (informal, simile) Calm and composed even in difficult or frustrating situations; self-possessed.
    • Even during the elections, Josh was as cool as a cucumber.
    • Still he had all his wits about him, and was as cool as a cucumber.1722, Daniel Defoe, Tweede deel der wonderbare levens gevallen van Robinson Crusoe ... Nu uit het Engelsch vertaaldt, en met een kaart zyner voyagie, en figuren voorzien (translation), page 167

Examples of cool as a cucumber in a sentence

  • Fabregas, cool as a cucumber, fired his penalty straight down the middle of the goal.2011 January 8, Chris Bevan, “Arsenal 1 - 1 Leeds”, in BBC:
  • I’ll be as cool as a cucumber in the saddle” with Exaggerator on Saturday.2016 May 17, Don Markus, “For Kent Desormeaux, Preakness is a welcome Maryland homecoming”, in The Washington Post:

Synonyms of cool as a cucumber

Origin of cool as a cucumber

First use appears c. 1722 in a translation of Robinson Crusoe. See cite below.

Questions about cool as a cucumber

What does cool as a cucumber mean?
Cool as a cucumber means calm and composed even in difficult or frustrating situations; self-possessed.
How do you use cool as a cucumber in a sentence?
Fabregas, cool as a cucumber, fired his penalty straight down the middle of the goal.
What part of speech is cool as a cucumber?
Cool as a cucumber is an adjective.

Words near cool as a cucumber in the dictionary

  1. cool
  2. cool and the gang
  3. cool arrow
  4. cool arrows
  5. cool art
  6. cool as a cucumber
  7. cool bag
  8. cool bags
  9. cool beans
  10. cool box
  11. cool boxes

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: cool as a cucumber (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-cool as a cucumber.ogg.

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