See also: Cool and COOL

English

 
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Wikipedia

Alternative forms

Pronunciation

  • (UK) enPR: ko͞ol, IPA(key): /kuːl/
  • (US) IPA(key): /kul/
  • Rhymes: -uːl
  • (file)

Etymology 1

From Middle English cool, from Old English cōl (cool, cold, tranquil, calm), from Proto-West Germanic *kōl(ī), from Proto-Germanic *kōlaz, *kōluz (cool), from Proto-Indo-European *gel- (cold).

Cognate with Saterland Frisian köil (cool), West Frisian koel (cool), Dutch koel (cool), Limburgish kool (cool), German Low German köhl (cool), German kühl (cool). Related to cold.

Adjective

cool (comparative cooler, superlative coolest)

 
cool colors
  1. Of a mildly low temperature.
    Synonym: chilly
    Antonyms: lukewarm, tepid, warm
    • 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:
      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: [] .
  2. Allowing or suggesting heat relief.
    Linen has made cool and breathable clothing for millennia.
    • 1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 2, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC:
      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.
  3. Of a color, in the range of violet to green.
    Antonym: warm
    If you have a reddish complexion, you should mainly wear cool colors.
  4. (of a person) Not showing emotion; calm and in control of oneself.
    Synonyms: distant, phlegmatic, standoffish, unemotional
    Antonym: passionate
  5. Unenthusiastic, lukewarm, skeptical.
    Antonym: warm
    His proposals had a cool reception.
  6. Calmly audacious.
  7. Applied facetiously to a sum of money, commonly as if to give emphasis to the largeness of the amount.
    • 1749, Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, volumes (please specify |volume=I to VI), London: A[ndrew] Millar, [], →OCLC:
      Who will lend me a cool hundred.
    • 1860 December – 1861 August, Charles Dickens, chapter XVIII, in Great Expectations [], volume III, London: Chapman and Hall, [], published October 1861, →OCLC, page 303:
      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.
    • 1900, Dora Sigerson Shorter, Transmigration
      You remember Bulger, don't you? You lost a cool hundred to him one night here over the cards, eh?
    • 1944 November 28, Irving Brecher and Fred F. Finklehoffe, Meet Me in St. Louis, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer:
      My father was talking to the World's Fair Commission yesterday, and they estimate it's going to cost a cool fifty million.
  8. (informal) Of a person, knowing what to do and how to behave; behaving with effortless and enviable style and panache; considered popular by others.
    Antonyms: awkward, uncool
    • 2017 December 27, “The Guardian view on Prince Harry: the monarchy’s best insurance policy”, in the Guardian[2]:
      He managed to conduct interviews with the least cool global figure – his father, Prince Charles – and the most cool, Barack Obama, in a way that allowed them both to look as good as they could.
  9. (informal, originally hipster slang) Fashionable; trendy and hip.
    Synonyms: à la mode, fashionable, in fashion, modish, stylish, happening, hip, in, trendy
    Antonyms: démodé, old hat, out, out of fashion
    • 2008, Lou Schuler, "Foreward", in Nate Green, Built for Show, page xii
      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.
  10. (informal) All right; acceptable.
    Synonyms: acceptable, all right, OK
    Antonyms: (UK) not cricket, not on, unacceptable
    Is it cool if I sleep here tonight?
    • 1962, “Monster Mash”, Bobby "Boris" Pickett and Lenny Capizzi (lyrics), performed by Bobby (Boris) Pickett and The Crypt-Kickers:
      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.
  11. (informal) Very interesting or exciting.
    I think astronomy is really cool.
    Synonyms: awesome, neat
  12. (informal) (followed by with) Able to tolerate; to be fine with.
    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?
Derived terms
Descendants
  • Chinese: ()
  • Dutch: cool
  • French: cool
  • German: cool
  • Polish: cool
  • Spanish: cool
  • Swedish: cool
  • Japanese: クール (kūru)
    Japanese: クーデレ (kūdere)
    English: kuudere
Translations
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

Noun

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.
Translations

Etymology 2

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.

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.
    Synonym: cool down
    Antonyms: warm, warm up, heat, heat up
    Hyponym: freeze
    I like to let my tea cool before drinking it so I don't burn my tongue.
  2. (transitive, literally) To make cooler, less warm.
    Synonyms: chill, cool down, refrigerate; deheat (rare)
    Antonyms: warm, warm up, heat, heat up
    Hyponym: freeze
  3. (intransitive, figuratively) To become less intense, e.g. less amicable or passionate.
    Relations cooled between the USA and the USSR after 1980.
  4. (transitive, figuratively) To make less intense, e.g. less amicable or passionate.
  5. (transitive, slang, dated) To kill, murder.
    • 1965, "Sex Jungle" (narrated in Perversion for Profit)
      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 couldn't feel very proud of skulling an old man, but at least I could say that I'd scored. That was a big kick.
    • 1967, Piri Thomas, Down These Mean Streets, New York, N.Y.: Alfred A. Knopf, page 31:
      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.
  6. (intransitive, African-American Vernacular, slang) To relax, hang out.
    Synonym: bool (slang)
    • 1986, “6 in the Mornin'”‎[3]performed by Ice-T:
      Seen my homeboys coolin' way way out / Told 'em bout my mornin' cold bugged' em out
    • 2000, Paul Beatty, Tuff: A Novel, New York, N.Y.: Anchor Books, published 2001, →ISBN, page 223:
      "What up, kid?" ¶ "Coolin'."
    • '1997, Courttia Newland, The Scholar: A West Side Story, London: Abacus, →ISBN, page 207:
      Asbestos? Raa, dat's a dangerous t'ing boy, dat ain't good. You know what though, you guys should min' yourselves walkin' street star, dere's bere nutters about. I know you're in a crew but boy can't you jus' cool at someone's house?'
Derived terms
Translations

References

Anagrams

Dutch

Etymology

Borrowed from English cool. Doublet of koel.

Pronunciation

Adjective

cool (comparative cooler, superlative coolst)

  1. cool, fashionable

Inflection

Inflection of cool
uninflected cool
inflected coole
comparative cooler
positive comparative superlative
predicative/adverbial cool cooler het coolst
het coolste
indefinite m./f. sing. coole coolere coolste
n. sing. cool cooler coolste
plural coole coolere coolste
definite coole coolere coolste
partitive cools coolers

French

Etymology

Borrowed from English cool.

Pronunciation

Adjective

cool (invariable)

  1. cool (only its informal senses, mainly fashionable)
    Les jeunes sont cool.
    Young people are cool.
    Les jeunes boivent de l’alcool pour être cool.
    Young people drink alcohol to be cool.

Interjection

cool

  1. cool! great!

Derived terms

Anagrams

German

Etymology

Borrowed from English cool. Doublet of kühl.

Pronunciation

Adjective

cool (strong nominative masculine singular cooler, comparative cooler, superlative am coolsten)

  1. (colloquial) cool (in its informal senses)
    Synonyms: brilliant, genial, geil
    Die Musik war echt cool.
    The music was very cool.
    • 1982, “Der Kommissar”, in Einzelhaft, performed by Falco:
      Wir treffen Jill und Joe und dessen Bruder Hip / Und auch den Rest der coolen Gang
      (please add an English translation of this quotation)
  2. (colloquial) cool, calm, easy-going
    Synonyms: lässig, ruhig
    Als Trainer muss mann ziemlich cool sein.
    As a trainer you have to be quite easy-going.

Declension

Further reading

  • cool” in Digitales Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache
  • cool” in Uni Leipzig: Wortschatz-Lexikon
  • cool” in Duden online
  • cool” in OpenThesaurus.de

Polish

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from English cool.

Pronunciation

Adjective

cool (not comparable, no derived adverb)

  1. (slang) cool (in its informal senses)
    Synonyms: świetny, wspaniały, znakomity

Further reading

  • cool in Wielki słownik języka polskiego, Instytut Języka Polskiego PAN
  • cool in Polish dictionaries at PWN

Romanian

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from English cool.

Adjective

cool m or f or n (indeclinable)

  1. cool

Declension

Adverb

cool

  1. cool

Noun

cool n (uncountable)

  1. cool

Declension

Spanish

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from English cool.

Pronunciation

Adjective

cool m or f (masculine and feminine plural cools or cool)

  1. cool (in its informal sense)

Usage notes

According to Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) prescriptions, unadapted foreign words should be written in italics in a text printed in roman type, and vice versa, and in quotation marks in a manuscript text or when italics are not available. In practice, this RAE prescription is not always followed.

Anagrams

Swedish

Etymology

Borrowed from English cool. Attested since 1951.

Pronunciation

Adjective

cool (comparative coolare, superlative coolast)

  1. (colloquial) cool (calm, collected)
    Träskmonstret röt åt honom, men han var helt cool
    The swamp monster roared at him, but he was completely cool
  2. (colloquial) cool (appealing (in a calm, controlled way))
    en cool snubbe med coola solglasögon
    a cool guy with cool sunglasses
    Han tyckte rymden var cool
    He thought space was cool

Declension

Inflection of cool
Indefinite Positive Comparative Superlative2
Common singular cool coolare coolast
Neuter singular coolt coolare coolast
Plural coola coolare coolast
Masculine plural3 coole coolare coolast
Definite Positive Comparative Superlative
Masculine singular1 coole coolare coolaste
All coola coolare coolaste
1) Only used, optionally, to refer to things whose natural gender is masculine.
2) The indefinite superlative forms are only used in the predicative.
3) Dated or archaic

References

Turkish

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from English cool

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /kuːɫ/
  • Hyphenation: kul

Adjective

cool

  1. cool