Dictionary entry

Cool

Webster's Dictionary 1913

Cool (?), a. [Compar.Cooler (?); superl.Coolest.] [AS. cōl; akin to D. koel, G. kühl, OHG. chouli, Dan. kölig, Sw. kylig, also to AS. calan to be cold, Icel. kala. See Cold, and cf. Chill.] 1. Moderately cold; between warm and cold; lacking in warmth; producing or promoting coolness.

Fanned with cool winds.

Milton.

2. Not ardent, warm, fond, or passionate; not hasty; deliberate; exercising self-control; self-possessed; dispassionate; indifferent; as, a cool lover; a cool debater.

For a patriot, too cool.

Goldsmith.

3. Not retaining heat; light; as, a cool dress.

4. Manifesting coldness or dislike; chilling; apathetic; as, a cool manner.

5. Quietly impudent; negligent of propriety in matters of minor importance, either ignorantly or willfully; presuming and selfish; audacious; as, cool behavior.

Its cool stare of familiarity was intolerable.

Hawthorne.

6. Applied facetiously, in a vague sense, to a sum of money, commonly as if to give emphasis to the largeness of the amount.

He had lost a cool hundred.

Fielding.

Leaving a cool thousand to Mr. Matthew Pocket.

Dickens.

Syn. — Calm; dispassionate; self-possessed; composed; repulsive; frigid; alienated; impudent.