cooler

Pluralcoolers

1. 1
   nouncountable

   A portable insulated container in which ice or freezer packs keep food and drinks chilled, used especially on picnics and camping trips.

   He hauled the cooler down to the beach and wedged it into the shade.

   By the second day of camping, the ice in the cooler had nearly melted.

   Similaricebox

   Note

   Like bucket or bag, the box doubles as a measure of what it holds: a cooler of Gatorade, four coolers of dry ice. In that construction the contents are the real subject. Karen Crouse's 2007 sports report has players grabbing a cooler of Gatorade for a sideline prank, and nobody is reaching for the empty box.

2. 2
   adjective

   Comparative of cool.

   Mornings in the mountains are cooler than visitors expect.

   The redesigned logo looks cooler than the original.

   Note

   The comparative carries every sense of cool, not only temperature. A cooler color sits nearer violet or green, a cooler head is calmer, and a cooler reception is less enthusiastic. Context decides, and ambiguity is easy: "He looks cooler in shorts" can mean more comfortable or more composed. The noun shares the spelling but not the suffix. Here -er means "more"; in the noun it means "one that cools."

3. 3
   nouncountable

   Any object or substance that lowers the temperature of something else.

   A good cooler draws heat away from whatever it touches.

   Mechanics fitted a cooler to keep the transmission from overheating.

   Similarcoolant, chiller

   Oppositeheater

   Note

   The broad sense that the others narrow down: cool plus the -er that names whatever does the cooling. It once applied to diet as readily as to machinery. John Arbuthnot's An Essay Concerning the Nature of Aliments (1731) weighs acid foods "used only as Coolers," things eaten to cool the body. The boxes, drinks and appliances elsewhere on the page are this idea made specific.

4. 4
   nounCanadaSouth Africacountable or uncountable

   A drink made from alcohol, especially wine, mixed with fruit juice.

   Guests sipped cooler made from white wine and citrus juice.

   He prefers a tall glass of cooler to straight spirits.

   Note

   A drinks word of Canada and South Africa, where it works both as a count noun and a mass noun. You can order two coolers, or pour a glass of cooler. The fuller compound wine cooler names the usual base. Elsewhere the bare word is more likely to suggest a box of ice, so wine cooler is the clearer choice for a mixed audience.

5. 5
   nouncountable

   A refrigeration unit used to keep dead bodies cold in a morgue.

   The coroner stored the remains in the cooler overnight.

   Hospital staff slid the gurney toward the cooler at the back of the room.

   Similarrefrigerator

6. 6
   nounslangUScountable

   A prison or jail.

   They threw him in the cooler after the heist went wrong.

   She visited her brother in the cooler every Sunday.

   Similarjail, prison, slammer, clink, lockup

   Note

   American slang that nearly always travels with the preposition in. Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep (1939) has a character recall "we had him in the cooler on a Mann Act rap," which shows the hard-boiled crime register it belongs to. It suits dialogue and color. In neutral writing, prison or jail is the safe word.

7. 7
   nounslangUScountable

   A bouncer or doorman who keeps order at a bar or club.

   The club hired a new cooler to handle rowdy guests.

   The cooler stepped in before the argument turned into a fight.

   Similarbouncer, doorman

   Note

   More American slang, from the same register as the slang word for prison. The name suits a man whose job is to cool trouble down before it starts. It belongs to talk, not to job listings or formal prose, where bouncer or doorman is the expected word.

8. 8
   nounIndiacountableabbreviationellipsis

   Short for air cooler.

   During the dry summer, the cooler ran day and night.

   He refilled the water tank in the cooler each morning.

   Note

   Indian English drops the first word and lets the bare noun stand for the whole appliance. People switch on the cooler and refill its water tank. Air cooler, evaporative cooler, desert cooler and swamp cooler all name the same machine, and any of them shortens to this. A reader outside India may picture the insulated picnic box instead, so the setting has to do the work.

9. 9
   nouncountable

   In poker, a loss suffered while holding a normally strong hand, especially one that costs many chips.

   She ran into a cooler when her full house lost to four of a kind.

   Every player at the table groaned at the cooler that ended his tournament.

   Note

   Poker players use the word to excuse a loss rather than describe it. Calling a hand a cooler says the money could not have been saved, because both players held cards too strong to fold. It usually comes with run into ("she ran into a cooler"), as if the loss were a wall rather than a mistake.

10. 10
    nouncolloquialcountable

    A pack of cards stacked in a known order and secretly switched into a game so the cheat controls the outcome.

    The dealer palmed a cooler into play and dealt himself a winning hand.

    Suspicious of the smooth shuffle, the players accused him of using a cooler.

    Note

    Card-table slang that turns on temperature: a deck in honest play is "warm" from handling, while one stacked and slipped in unseen is "cold," and cool + -er names it accordingly. The word is colloquial, heard in talk of cheating at poker and other gambling. Keep it apart from the costly-loss meaning, where nobody need have cheated: a strong hand simply loses big.

11. 11
    nounPhilippinescountable

    A sweet chilled Filipino beverage, such as fruit juice or flavors like chocolate or coffee, usually mixed with shredded jelly or sago or tapioca pearls.

    On hot afternoons, vendors sell coolers in tall plastic cups.

    He ordered a corn-flavored cooler topped with sago pearls.

    Note

    Philippine English gives samalamig an English name, and it is always countable: one asks for a cooler, or buys three coolers. The drink is built on chilled juice or flavors such as coffee or sweet corn, thickened with jelly or pearls. It has nothing in common with the wine-and-juice drink except the idea of being cold.

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