play it cool
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
To remain calm and composed in a difficult situation
Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt
Giữ bình tĩnh và tự nhiên trong tình huống khó khăn
Machine-translated — suggest a fix
Literally: perform it calmly
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
erm something like play it cool boy I don't know what it is, it's really crap though.
Rainbow would prefer right now this minute, but plays it cool.
British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)
Sources & notes
Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-31; pending editor spot-check.
Common questions
What does “play it cool” mean?
To remain calm and composed in a difficult situation Literally: perform it calmly
Is “play it cool” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.