Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To utter the murmuring sound of a dove or pigeon or a sound resembling it.
- v. To talk fondly or amorously in murmurs: The visitors cooed over the newborn baby.
- v. To express or utter with soft murmuring sounds.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To utter a low, plaintive, murmuring sound (imitated by the sound of the word) characteristic of pigeons or doves.
- Hence To converse affectionately, like cooing doves; make love in murmuring endearments: commonly in the phrase to bill and coo. See bill, v. i.
- To utter by cooing.
- To call.
- n. The characteristic murmuring sound uttered by doves and pigeons.
Wiktionary
- n. The murmuring sound made by a dove or pigeon.
- v. transitive or intransitive To make a soft murmuring sound, as a pigeon.
- v. intransitive To speak in an admiring fashion, to be enthusiastic about.
- adj. slang cool
- interj. Expression of fright, surprise, approval, etc.
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. To make a low repeated cry or sound, like the characteristic note of pigeons or doves.
- v. To show affection; to act in a loving way. See under Bill, v. i.
WordNet 3.0
- n. the sound made by a pigeon
- v. cry softly, as of pigeons
- v. speak softly or lovingly
Etymologies
- Shortening of cool. Compare foo. (Wiktionary)
- Imitative. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“I don't b'Iieve he's anywhere within coo-ee of our place.”
“An interpretation might go like this: The a coo akab (mad one of the night, i.e. the screech owl) above the 13th heaven is perched upon the shoulders of Colel (another name for Ixchel).”
“Carl Kay, of Tokyo, wrote, “When a long-sullen baby suddenly expresses contentment in response to the exaggerated gestures of an adult, it is called a coo de théâtre.””
“Elizabeth, with what the girl called a coo in her voice.”
“I've been standing up there," he complained, "for three or four minutes calling coo-ee, and you never answered once!”
“In a few days after, whilst at home, the king sent for me and said he wished me to live with him entirely, so, accordingly, I remained in his house, and he appointed me a Che-re-coo, that is a kind of body guard to the king.”
“Indeed, with the stressed last syllable of its voice, the bird might well have been termed the coo-bird to begin with, which eliminates the need for the postulated abbreviation, even for any association with the Old World bird.”
“But the study also identified texting-specific dialect: Southern Californians thumb "coo," for "cool," for example, while Northern Californians opt for "koo.”
“But kartoffel definitely wins, and I like cumin better but only if you say "coo" and not "cyu".”
“Touching fabrics as if they are newborn babies...gently, softly...waiting to hear one "coo" and call out to me that they are mine.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘coo’.
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3-Letter Scrabble Words Which Do Not ...
A list of 3-letter words which cannot be formed by adding a letter to a 2-letter word (see Ken Clark's word lists found at http://www.seattlescrab...
fiz, fix, fir, fig, fie, fib, eve, eke, egg, eek, ecu, ebb and 225 more...
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Unknown
coalition, cabinet, tweet, defuse, steep, ancestral, mindset, breach, infraction, egregious, curb, backbite and 282 more...
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Sounds
words that describe sound
atchoo, atishoo, babble, bam, bay, beep, blast, blather, bleat, bleep, blip, bong and 242 more...
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El perro hace guau guau
Animal sounds in different languages, and the verbs that specify them.
Since Georgetown took down their page, the current definitive website for this information is:
Abbott ani...øf-øf, knor knor, groin groin, grunz, röf-röf, boo boo, hrgu hrgu, nöff-nöff, oink-oink, zumbar, ulular, rebuznar and 154 more...
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sound (quiet)
words for quiet sounds
( randomness, descriptive )sigh, murmur, whisper, whir, rustle, patter, hum, snap, hiss(sss), crackle, bleat, peep and 185 more...
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Change one letter
Change one letter in the title of an existing book, and create an entirely new literary work. Add a one-sentence comment, describing the new work.
all the pretty ho..., the brothels kara..., caesar's garlic wars, the unbearable ti..., a heartbreaking w..., the good marrow, the right stiff, lady windermere's..., infinite pest, the cremains of t..., eyes on the pride, the spoils of boy... and 747 more...
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3-letter Scrabble Words
aah, aal, aas, aba, abo, abs, aby, ace, act, add, ado, ads and 995 more...
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3 Letter Words
A list of English words that are three letters long.
ace, act, ade, ado, add, ads, age, ago, ail, air, aim, all and 397 more...
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Under The Kilt
Anything related to Scottish culture, cuisine, language, history and so on. Does not include Gaelic words unless acceptable (roughly speaking!) in a wider sense.
brae, machair, loch, burn, inverness, shieling, camanachd, shinty, diddy, bhoy, ghillie, brownie and 393 more...
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Onomatopoetics
Words formed in imitation of a natural sound.
bumble-bee, rat-a-tat, blurt, clink, chickadee, rub-a-dub, chirr, chug, keck, flim-flam, brekekekex, thunk and 94 more...
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Some Words I Love to Use
arcology, strumpet, crux, confected, pedant, bluestocking, cogitation, incensed, lovecraftian, cygnet, dactyl, adytum and 539 more...
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Amusing words
interesting words
bonce, furcate, tapioca, tillage, desalinate, garish, litmus, roadhog, azoic, haberdasher, imbroglio, polliwog and 802 more...
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courtneyah's Words
sigh, troglodyte, lithe, cambium, bark, poem, trochee, minute, ablution, hermeneutic, dogwood, mystique and 98 more...
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Palabrarium
The delicious wonderful words that I love terribly dearly and without which, the world would be a less inventive and worthwhile place. Also, ostensibly, the reason 1984 and esperanto secretly suck.
panoply, footpad, piccalilli, snickersnee, marl, hispid, greengage, slumgullion, golliwog, mumbletypeg, circumlocution, quiescent and 366 more...
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jmjarmstrong's list
Words that I used to know.
geloscopy, hunker, willy nilly, harum scarum, whacko, meh, nork, misunderestimate, atrabiliousness, luftmensch, auxanometer, hyperhedonia and 1948 more...
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my never-ending list
Criteria of a word to be placed on list: no simple words like if or the, and it must be a word i love.
coo, truffle, bliss, mumbo jumbo, putter, buzz, abundance, acrimony, kismet, glisten, muffled, fascination and 15 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for coo.
jmjarmstrong JM overheard some doves plotting a coo. Jul 27, 2011
sionnach Jane Smiley on pigeons. Jan 31, 2008
bilby Cow (Scots). Nov 27, 2007