Coolness is mild coldness, or calm unfriendliness. The coolness of the evening, a coolness between them, coolness under pressure.
The social sense is the sharpest: a coolness between two people is a quarrel nobody has admitted to. A third sense, coolness under fire, is praise for staying calm when it counts.
1nouncoolnessMild coldness, or calm unfriendliness.
“The coolness of the evening air was a relief after the hot day.”
coolness is a quality.
Old English colnes comes from col, cool, and first meant cool air.
Proto-West Germanic
*kōlinassī
Old English
cōlnes
Middle English
colnes
English, today
coolness
Built from
From Middle English colnes, colnesse, from Old English cōlnes, cœ̄lnes, cēlnes (“coolness; cool air, breeze”), from Proto-West Germanic kōlinassī, equivalent to cool + ness. Cognate with Middle High German kuolnisse, küelnisse (“cooling, coolness”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA