As cool as a cucumber means very calm and composed. It describes a person who stays calm where others get nervous: in an exam, at an interview or in an emergency. The idiom is informal, and the first as is often left out. In writing, calm or composed works instead.
When would you say as cool as a cucumber?
Write a sentence — we'll check that the expression fits the situation and suggest what to fix.
The check is taking longer than usual. Your feedback will appear here automatically.
be/stay/look + (as) cool as a cucumber
- Everyone else was panicking before the interview, but Maria was as cool as a cucumber.
- The flight attendants stayed cool as a cucumber when we hit heavy turbulence over the Alps.
- He looked as cool as a cucumber on stage, although he later admitted he'd been terrified.
What changed
First versionTom was as cold as a cucumber during his driving test.
RevisionTom was as cool as a cucumber during his driving test.
Cold may seem close, since cool and cold both describe temperature. But the idiom is fixed with cool, which here means “calm, not nervous”. Cold about a person means “unfriendly, distant”, which is a completely different quality. Only cold was replaced with cool.
As cool as a cucumber describes how a person was or looked. If you need a call to action, or want to describe the act of staying calm, use keep calm or keep your cool: Try to keep your cool during the negotiations.
Your turn
When the fire alarm went off in the middle of the exam, our teacher stayed ___ and calmly led everyone outside.
Show the answer
as cool as a cucumber — The teacher didn't panic and calmly led everyone outside, which means staying as cool as a cucumber. As red as a beetroot means “very red in the face”: people go that colour from embarrassment or shame, which doesn't match calmness.
Think of someone who kept calm in a difficult situation: on the road, in an exam or at work. Say what happened and what they did.
When our car broke down on the motorway at night, my dad stayed as cool as a cucumber and called the breakdown service.
Learn to use new words without mistakes
Write phrases with the words you are learning. LetsWords shows mistakes in usage and grammar, suggests corrections and explains them, and review helps the words stick.