cooler

UK/ˈkuː.lə(ɹ)//ˈku.lɚ/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

cooler noun: anything which cools. Also the ellipsis of air cooler.

Image: Rubbermaid Products from Huntersville, North Carolina, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

cooler (plural coolers)

Anything which cools.
- If acid Things were used only as Coolers, they would not be so proper in this Case.1731, John Arbuthnot, An Essay Concerning the Nature of Aliments, and the Choice of Them, According to the Different Constitutions of Human Bodies. […], London: […] J[acob] Tonson […], →OCLC
An insulated bin or box used with ice or freezer packs to keep food or beverages cold while picnicking or camping.
- While Brown distracted the usually hyperfocused Mangini, safety Kerry Rhodes and linebackers Eric Barton and Jonathan Vilma grabbed a cooler of Gatorade and surreptitiously assumed their positions according to plan.2007 January 1, Karen Crouse, “With Wild-Card Spot Clinched, Jets Can Finally Talk Playoffs”, in The New York Times
- Two women were found unresponsive in a car along with the likely culprit – four coolers of dry ice – Friday morning in Pierce County, Washington, CNN affiliate KOMO reports.2018 August 1, Michael Nedelman, “Ice cream salesman’s wife and mother suffocated by dry ice in car”, in CNN
Synonyms:

car fridge, cool bag, cool box, chilly bin, esky, ice chest
A device for refrigerating dead bodies in a morgue.
- He recalls that experience in a smooth, speedy story, “The Monster Mash,” but these days he’s not sure he liked it too much — the disembowelings, the coolers of brains, the stench of decomposing corpses (“the smell of job security,” as one pathologist puts it) terrify him.2008 June 15, Vanessa Grigoriadis, “Up in Smoke”, in The New York Times
(Canada, South Africa, countable, uncountable) A type of drink made with alcohol, especially wine, mixed with fruit juice.
- They served wine coolers in the afternoon.
(Philippines, countable) samalamig drink (sweet chilled beverage, such as chilled fruit juice or other flavors like chocolate, coffee, sweet corn, etc., usually mixed with either shredded jelly and/or sago pearls or tapioca pearls)
(US, slang) A prison.
- About a year or so back we had him in the cooler on a Mann Act rap.1939, Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep
(US, slang) A bouncer or doorman.
(colloquial) A cold deck.
A loss suffered while holding a hand which is ordinarily strong, especially one which involves the loss of many chips.
(obsolete, slang) A final glass of porter after a session drinking spirits and water.
(archaic, slang) A cooling swim or dip in the water.
- That night this ungainly urchin, taking a cooler in one of the big irrigation canals, got laid hold of by an alligator and raised the most unearthly screech […]1923, Ernest Bramah [pseudonym; Ernest Brammah Smith], “(please specify the page)”, in The Eyes of Max Carrados, London: Grant Richards, →OCLC

Proper noun capitalized: Cooler

Cooler (plural Coolers)

A surname from German.

Also used as

cooler is also the ellipsis of air cooler.

cooler is also the comparative form of cool.

cooler meaning in Arabic

cooler in Arabic

chilled mixed drink: مُبَرِّد mubarrid

Examples of cooler in a sentence

We're parched, hon. Could you send up an ale from the cooler?
In those days The Late Show was Monday water cooler topic du jour.
It suddenly became noticeably cooler when the sun went behind a cloud.

All 40 example sentences with cooler

Synonyms of cooler

All synonyms of cooler

Forms of cooler

Noun
plural	coolers
Proper noun
plural	Coolers

Plural of cooler: coolers

Origin of cooler

From cool + -er.

Americanized spelling of German Kühler.

Words formed from cooler

Phrases with cooler

Words that rhyme with cooler

Questions about cooler

What does cooler mean?: Cooler means anything which cools.
What is cooler in Arabic?: Cooler in Arabic is مُبَرِّد (mubarrid). See Cooler meaning in Arabic.
What part of speech is cooler?: Cooler can be a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce cooler?: Cooler is pronounced /ˈkuː.lə(ɹ)/ (UK).
What is the plural of cooler?: The plural of cooler is coolers.

Words near cooler in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: cooler (page history and authors); Cooler (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: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-cooler.ogg, LL-Q1860 (eng)-Wodencafe-cooler.wav.

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