"cool head" meaning in English

See cool head in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Audio: en-au-cool head.ogg Forms: cool heads [plural]
Head templates: {{en-noun}} cool head (plural cool heads)
  1. (idiomatic) A calm, focused demeanor and mindset; a person having such characteristics. Tags: idiomatic Derived forms: cool-headed, cooler heads will prevail Translations (a person with a calm, focused mindset): koelkop (Afrikaans)

Inflected forms

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "cool heads",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "cool head (plural cool heads)",
      "name": "en-noun"
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  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
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        },
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        }
      ],
      "derived": [
        {
          "word": "cool-headed"
        },
        {
          "word": "cooler heads will prevail"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              112,
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          "ref": "1829, James Fenimore Cooper, chapter 23, in The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish:",
          "text": "[H]e had been engaged in divers hostile expeditions against the aborigines, and on all occasions had he shown a cool head and a resolute mind.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
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          ],
          "ref": "1896, Mark Twain, chapter 5, in Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc:",
          "text": "Joan had a cool head—the only cool head there—and she took command and brought order out of that chaos.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              14,
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            ]
          ],
          "ref": "1984 June 8, Janet Maslin, “Film: Ghostbusters, with Murray and Aykroyd”, in New York Times, retrieved 20 Mar 2014:",
          "text": "It requires a cool head, which Mr. Murray most assuredly has, as well as the ability to remain unruffled by bizarre apparitions.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              123,
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            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2006 November 19, Christine Gorman, “What Ails The CDC”, in Time, retrieved 20 Mar 2014:",
          "text": "A telegenic personality who connected easily with journalists, Gerberding quickly became the public face of the CDC—a rare cool head among a parade of increasingly confused health bureaucrats.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
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          ],
          "ref": "2025 November 12, Philip Haigh, “High praise for rail staff's courage and clear thinking”, in RAIL, number 1048, page 50:",
          "text": "There was also public praise in the days that followed for the train's driver, Andrew Johnson. It took a cool head to co-ordinate with the signaller at York ROC to have the train switched from fast to slow line, to permit the stop in Huntingdon station.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A calm, focused demeanor and mindset; a person having such characteristics."
      ],
      "id": "en-cool_head-en-noun-ZzAC3hjI",
      "links": [
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          "focused"
        ],
        [
          "demeanor",
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        ],
        [
          "mindset",
          "mindset"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) A calm, focused demeanor and mindset; a person having such characteristics."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "code": "af",
          "lang": "Afrikaans",
          "lang_code": "af",
          "sense": "a person with a calm, focused mindset",
          "word": "koelkop"
        }
      ]
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      "audio": "en-au-cool head.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/2/2a/En-au-cool_head.ogg/En-au-cool_head.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2a/En-au-cool_head.ogg"
    }
  ],
  "word": "cool head"
}
{
  "derived": [
    {
      "word": "cool-headed"
    },
    {
      "word": "cooler heads will prevail"
    }
  ],
  "forms": [
    {
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      "tags": [
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    }
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        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English idioms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English nouns",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "Entries with translation boxes",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries",
        "Quotation templates to be cleaned",
        "Terms with Afrikaans translations"
      ],
      "examples": [
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            [
              112,
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            ]
          ],
          "ref": "1829, James Fenimore Cooper, chapter 23, in The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish:",
          "text": "[H]e had been engaged in divers hostile expeditions against the aborigines, and on all occasions had he shown a cool head and a resolute mind.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              11,
              20
            ],
            [
              30,
              39
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "1896, Mark Twain, chapter 5, in Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc:",
          "text": "Joan had a cool head—the only cool head there—and she took command and brought order out of that chaos.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              14,
              23
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "1984 June 8, Janet Maslin, “Film: Ghostbusters, with Murray and Aykroyd”, in New York Times, retrieved 20 Mar 2014:",
          "text": "It requires a cool head, which Mr. Murray most assuredly has, as well as the ability to remain unruffled by bizarre apparitions.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              123,
              132
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2006 November 19, Christine Gorman, “What Ails The CDC”, in Time, retrieved 20 Mar 2014:",
          "text": "A telegenic personality who connected easily with journalists, Gerberding quickly became the public face of the CDC—a rare cool head among a parade of increasingly confused health bureaucrats.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              105,
              114
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2025 November 12, Philip Haigh, “High praise for rail staff's courage and clear thinking”, in RAIL, number 1048, page 50:",
          "text": "There was also public praise in the days that followed for the train's driver, Andrew Johnson. It took a cool head to co-ordinate with the signaller at York ROC to have the train switched from fast to slow line, to permit the stop in Huntingdon station.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A calm, focused demeanor and mindset; a person having such characteristics."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "calm",
          "calm"
        ],
        [
          "focused",
          "focused"
        ],
        [
          "demeanor",
          "demeanor"
        ],
        [
          "mindset",
          "mindset"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) A calm, focused demeanor and mindset; a person having such characteristics."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
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    {
      "audio": "en-au-cool head.ogg",
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  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "af",
      "lang": "Afrikaans",
      "lang_code": "af",
      "sense": "a person with a calm, focused mindset",
      "word": "koelkop"
    }
  ],
  "word": "cool head"
}

Download raw JSONL data for cool head meaning in English (3.0kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-12-15 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-12-02 using wiktextract (e2469cc 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.