cool as a cucumber
to be unemotional, unfeeling
STATISTICS
IN THE PRESS
Her standing ovation was well deserved and when asked how she remains COOL AS A CUCUMBER on the big stage, she replied "I pretend no one's watching!"
(www.cmr.com)
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Despite my intentions of being a COOL-AS-A-CUCUMBER parent, the birth of my first child, now 18, transformed me into a maternal tossed salad.
(The Huffington Post)
(www.cmr.com)
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Despite my intentions of being a COOL-AS-A-CUCUMBER parent, the birth of my first child, now 18, transformed me into a maternal tossed salad.
(The Huffington Post)
Did you
know?
cool as a cucumber
idiom
- very calm or very calmly, especially when this is surprising
(Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary)
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Comparisons, or similes as they are called in linguistics, are an excellent way to spice up any language. While not spicy itself, the cucumber is cool to the touch and thus offers a figurative way to describe someone who is cool, like in calm and collected. The expression was used as early as 1732 in John Gay's Poems, New Song on New Similes:
Pert as a pear-monger I’d be,
If Molly were but kind;
Cool as a cucumber could see
The rest of womankind.
The remainder of the poem is full of similes such as "plump as a partridge" and "smooth as glass". Following are a few more examples of similes that pop up in everyday English, some of which are intentionally ironic:
- as black as coal
- as exciting as watching paint dry
- as drunk as a sailor
- as happy as a dog with two tails
- as light as a feather
- as safe as the Bank Of England
- as wise as an owl
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SYNONYMS
cool as ice, cool as a moose
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SMUGGLE OWAD into today's conversation
"She was as cool as a cucumber during her presentation to the board of management."
idiom
- very calm or very calmly, especially when this is surprising
(Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary)
---
Comparisons, or similes as they are called in linguistics, are an excellent way to spice up any language. While not spicy itself, the cucumber is cool to the touch and thus offers a figurative way to describe someone who is cool, like in calm and collected. The expression was used as early as 1732 in John Gay's Poems, New Song on New Similes:
Pert as a pear-monger I’d be,
If Molly were but kind;
Cool as a cucumber could see
The rest of womankind.
The remainder of the poem is full of similes such as "plump as a partridge" and "smooth as glass". Following are a few more examples of similes that pop up in everyday English, some of which are intentionally ironic:
- as black as coal
- as exciting as watching paint dry
- as drunk as a sailor
- as happy as a dog with two tails
- as light as a feather
- as safe as the Bank Of England
- as wise as an owl
---
SYNONYMS
cool as ice, cool as a moose
---
SMUGGLE OWAD into today's conversation
"She was as cool as a cucumber during her presentation to the board of management."
