Word.ws English Dictionary

coolly

/ˈkuːl.li/

coolly adverb: at a moderately low temperature.

Adverb

coolly (comparative more coolly, superlative most coolly)

  1. At a moderately low temperature.
    • The wind blew coolly.
  2. In a cool, unpanicked or collected manner.
    • "He was here," observed Drina composedly, "and father was angry with him." ¶ "What?" exclaimed Eileen. "When?" ¶ "This morning, before father went downtown." ¶ Both Selwyn and Lansing cut in coolly, dismissing the matter with a careless word or two; and coffee was served—cambric tea in Drina's case.1907 August, Robert W[illiam] Chambers, chapter IV, in The Younger Set, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC
    • Well, she looks at you so coolly / And her eyes shine like the moon in the sea1976, Al Stewart, Peter Wood, “Year of the Cat”
  3. With calm impudence.
    • They walked in, not even wearing masks, and coolly robbed the bank of twelve thousand pounds.

Adjective

coolly (comparative more coolly, superlative most coolly)

  1. (obsolete) Coolish; somewhat cool in temperature.
    • Keeping my sheep amongst the coolly shade of the green alders.1595, Ed. Spencer [i.e., Edmund Spenser], “Colin Clouts Come Home Againe”, in Colin Clouts Come Home Againe, London: […] T[homas] C[reede] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC

Examples of coolly in a sentence

  • Up stepped Pirlo, who coolly took a Panenka as Hart dived to his right.
  • Graham secured victory with five minutes left, coolly lifting the ball over Asmir Begovic.
  • "I doubt if you could stand the trip," the major said coolly.

All 16 example sentences with coolly

Forms of coolly

Adverb
comparativemore coolly
superlativemost coolly
Adjective
comparativemore coolly
superlativemost coolly

Origin of coolly

From cool + -ly (adverbial suffix).

From cool + -ly (adjectival suffix).

Words that rhyme with coolly

20 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about coolly

What does coolly mean?
Coolly means at a moderately low temperature.
What part of speech is coolly?
Coolly can be an adverb or an adjective.
How do you pronounce coolly?
Coolly is pronounced /ˈkuːl.li/.

Words near coolly in the dictionary

  1. Coolins
  2. coolio
  3. coolis
  4. coolish
  5. coolitude
  6. coolly
  7. coolness
  8. coolnesses
  9. coolometer
  10. coolometers
  11. Coolongolook

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: coolly (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: en-us-coolly.ogg.

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