chill.
A moderate, but uncomfortable and penetrating coldness.
Meaning & usage
A moderate, but uncomfortable and penetrating coldness.
There was a chill in the air.
A sudden penetrating sense of cold, especially one that causes a brief trembling nerve response through the body; the trembling response itself; often associated with illness: fevers and chills, or susceptibility to illness.
Close the window or you'll catch a chill.
I felt a chill when the wind picked up.
An uncomfortable and numbing sense of fear, dread, anxiety, or alarm, often one that is sudden and usually accompanied by a trembling nerve response resembling the body's response to biting cold.
Despite the heat, he felt a chill as he entered the crime scene.
The actor's eerie portrayal sent chills through the audience.
An iron mould or portion of a mould, serving to cool rapidly, and so to harden, the surface of molten iron brought in contact with it.
The hardened part of a casting, such as the tread of a carriage wheel.
A lack of warmth and cordiality; unfriendliness.
Calmness; equanimity.
A sense of style; trendiness; savoir faire.
A chilling effect; an atmosphere of this.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English chele, chile, from Old English ċiele, ċele (“cold; coldness”), from Proto-West Germanic *kali, from Proto-Germanic *kaliz, from Proto-Indo-European *gel- (“to be cold”). Closely related with Dutch kil. Also akin to cool, cold, gel, and congeal, which see.
Moderately cold or chilly.
A chill wind was blowing down the street.
Unwelcoming; not cordial.
Arriving late at the wedding, we were met with a chill reception.
Calm, relaxed, easygoing.
The teacher is really chill and doesn't care if you use your phone during class.
Paint-your-own ceramics studios are a chill way to express yourself while learning more about your date's right brain.
"Cool"; meeting a certain hip standard or garnering the approval of a certain peer group.
That new movie was chill, man.
Okay, not a problem.
Sorry about that. —It's chill.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English chele, chile, from Old English ċiele, ċele (“cold; coldness”), from Proto-West Germanic *kali, from Proto-Germanic *kaliz, from Proto-Indo-European *gel- (“to be cold”). Closely related with Dutch kil. Also akin to cool, cold, gel, and congeal, which see.
To lower the temperature of something; to cool.
Chill before serving.
To become cold.
In the wind he chilled quickly.
To harden a metal surface by sudden cooling.
To become hard by rapid cooling.
To relax; to lie back; to take things easy.
Chill, man, we've got a whole week to do it; no sense in getting worked up.
The new gym teacher really has to chill or he's gonna blow a gasket.
To "hang", hang out; to spend time with another person or group.
Hey, we should chill this weekend.
He likes to chill with his friends on Saturdays.
To smoke marijuana.
On Friday night do you wanna chill?
To discourage, depress.
Censorship chills public discourse.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English chillen, from Old English ċilian (“to be cold”), from Proto-West Germanic *kilēn (“to be cold”). Cognate with Middle Dutch killen (“to be cold”), Dutch killen (“to be cold, shiver”).
I will
Where this word comes from
From Middle English ichille, equivalent to ch- + will, from ich + will.
A kind of lamp that burns fish oil.
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.