Idiom
Cool as a cucumber
Someone who is cool as a cucumber stays calm and relaxed, especially in a stressful or difficult situation.
How people use it
People use it to praise someone who keeps their nerve: a goalkeeper facing a penalty kick, a student giving a speech, a nurse in an emergency, a driver on an icy road. The full form is often as cool as a cucumber. It is informal and admiring. Cool here means calm, not stylish or cold, though the cucumber image plays on both. It often follows stay, look, seem or remain: She stayed cool as a cucumber during the interview.
Also said: as cool as a cucumber.
Examples
- Even when the projector died, Priya stayed cool as a cucumber and finished her talk.
- The pilot sounded as cool as a cucumber as she announced the bumpy weather ahead.
- Ben was cool as a cucumber during his driving test, but his hands shook afterward.
Where it comes from
Cucumbers feel cool to the touch, even on warm days, because they are mostly water. Comparing a calm person to a cucumber has been part of English since at least the 1700s; the poet John Gay used the comparison in a poem in 1732. Over time the meaning shifted from physically cool to calm under pressure.
Check yourself
1. If a firefighter is cool as a cucumber, what is he like?
Answer: Calm under pressure. Cool as a cucumber means calm and relaxed, even in a crisis.
2. Why are cucumbers used in this idiom?
Answer: They feel cool to the touch. Cucumbers feel cool because they are mostly water, which suggested a calm, cool person.
Similar idioms
Word game fan? See every word hiding in CUCUMBER.