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Cool Million

Posted by R. Berg on March 31, 2001

In Reply to: Cool Million posted by Kevin on March 31, 2001

: Can someone please tell me the definition and origin of the phrase "a cool million"?

Definition: A million dollars. The phrase applies especially in contexts of avarice and ambition, when people are talking about how much they'd like to have, or how clever somebody was to get, $1 million. "A cool million" is used for a million dollars considered as an asset, a lump sum, in contrast to an amount of cash flow, for example. This phrase sounds a little archaic--more widely used during, say, the 1930s. Origin: I don't know, except that "cool" is a long-standing slang word for "good," originally connoting being relaxed and sophisticated.

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