"be cool" meaning in English

See be cool in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Interjection

Etymology: From be + cool. Etymology templates: {{compound|en|be|cool}} be + cool
  1. (imperative) Used to implore someone to not reveal illegal or improper activity. Tags: imperative
    Sense id: en-be_cool-en-intj-EwF5qqfR Categories (other): English links with manual fragments Disambiguation of English links with manual fragments: 55 45
  2. (imperative) Used to remonstrate someone for being (inadvertently) awkward, nerdy, geeky, or embarrassing. Tags: imperative
    Sense id: en-be_cool-en-intj-jERQsCyd Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, English links with manual fragments, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 29 71 Disambiguation of English links with manual fragments: 55 45 Disambiguation of Pages with 1 entry: 20 80 Disambiguation of Pages with entries: 16 84
The following are not (yet) sense-disambiguated
Related terms: omertà, wall of silence, STFU, in crowd, vicarious embarrassment
{
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "be",
        "3": "cool"
      },
      "expansion": "be + cool",
      "name": "compound"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "From be + cool.",
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "intj",
  "related": [
    {
      "_dis1": "0 0",
      "word": "omertà"
    },
    {
      "_dis1": "0 0",
      "word": "wall of silence"
    },
    {
      "_dis1": "0 0",
      "word": "STFU"
    },
    {
      "_dis1": "0 0",
      "word": "in crowd"
    },
    {
      "_dis1": "0 0",
      "word": "vicarious embarrassment"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "55 45",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English links with manual fragments",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              108,
              115
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2016, Erin Udell, “Could CSU's Chase McNary be the next Bachelor?”, in The Coloradoan:",
          "text": "That's why I scoured our newsroom for red yarn, watched an episode of \"The Bachelorette\" during work (shhh, be cool) and tacked pictures of reality TV stars alongside a scrap of notebook paper...",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Used to implore someone to not reveal illegal or improper activity."
      ],
      "id": "en-be_cool-en-intj-EwF5qqfR",
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(imperative) Used to implore someone to not reveal illegal or improper activity."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "imperative"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "29 71",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "55 45",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English links with manual fragments",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "20 80",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "16 84",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Used to remonstrate someone for being (inadvertently) awkward, nerdy, geeky, or embarrassing."
      ],
      "id": "en-be_cool-en-intj-jERQsCyd",
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(imperative) Used to remonstrate someone for being (inadvertently) awkward, nerdy, geeky, or embarrassing."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "imperative"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "be cool"
}
{
  "categories": [
    "English compound terms",
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English interjections",
    "English lemmas",
    "English links with manual fragments",
    "English multiword terms",
    "Pages with 1 entry",
    "Pages with entries"
  ],
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "be",
        "3": "cool"
      },
      "expansion": "be + cool",
      "name": "compound"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "From be + cool.",
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "intj",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "omertà"
    },
    {
      "word": "wall of silence"
    },
    {
      "word": "STFU"
    },
    {
      "word": "in crowd"
    },
    {
      "word": "vicarious embarrassment"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English terms with quotations",
        "Quotation templates to be cleaned"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              108,
              115
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2016, Erin Udell, “Could CSU's Chase McNary be the next Bachelor?”, in The Coloradoan:",
          "text": "That's why I scoured our newsroom for red yarn, watched an episode of \"The Bachelorette\" during work (shhh, be cool) and tacked pictures of reality TV stars alongside a scrap of notebook paper...",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Used to implore someone to not reveal illegal or improper activity."
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(imperative) Used to implore someone to not reveal illegal or improper activity."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "imperative"
      ]
    },
    {
      "glosses": [
        "Used to remonstrate someone for being (inadvertently) awkward, nerdy, geeky, or embarrassing."
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(imperative) Used to remonstrate someone for being (inadvertently) awkward, nerdy, geeky, or embarrassing."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "imperative"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "be cool"
}

Download raw JSONL data for be cool meaning in English (1.5kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2026-01-13 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2026-01-01 using wiktextract (96027d6 and 9905b1f). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.