cooling

Pluralcoolings

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of cool.

   The lava is slowly cooling into solid rock.

   Engineers spent the night cooling the overheated reactor.

   Note

   Every use of the verb runs through this form, in both directions: the soup is cooling on its own, or someone is cooling it. Figuratively, friendships and passions can be cooling too. Two slang senses come with it, relaxing and, in dated slang, killing, so context decides what someone cooling a rival is doing to him. As a gerund it names the act itself: cooling takes time.

2. 2
   adjective

   Having the effect of lowering temperature or making something feel less hot.

   The cooling effect of the fan made the room bearable.

   Menthol gives the ointment its cooling sensation.

   Similarrefreshing, chilling, soothing

   Oppositeheating

   Note

   A true adjective rather than a verb form doing an adjective's work. It grades with more and most, so one drink can be more cooling than another. That test separates it from the -ing form of cool in "the soup is cooling," which cannot take more. Its learned synonym is frigorific.

3. 3
   nouncountable

   A decrease in the temperature of something.

   Forecasters predicted a sharp cooling over the weekend.

   The rapid cooling of the rock left visible fractures.

   Similardrop, fall, chill, decrease

   Oppositewarming, heating, rise

4. 4
   noununcountable

   The keeping of food or goods cold, as by refrigeration.

   Modern food storage depends on reliable cooling throughout the supply chain.

   The plant lost power, and cooling failed across all the storage units.

   Similarrefrigeration, chilling

   Oppositeheating

5. 5
   adjective

   In traditional Chinese medicine, said of a food or medicine that serves to cool or calm the body.

   In summer, many families eat cooling foods like watermelon and mung beans.

   The herbalist recommended a cooling soup to balance his diet.

   Oppositeheating

   Note

   Asian English carries a whole dietary system in this word. Foods are sorted as cooling or heaty, and the opposite is heaty, not hot. The label describes what a food does to the body, not how cold it is served. Anthony Burgess's Time for a Tiger (1956) counts steamed fish, chicken, vegetable soup and even mushrooms as cooling foods, and sets them against fried dishes and shark's fin soup.

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