Cool Your Jets Meaning
Definition: Calm down.
Origin of Cool Your Jets
If a person feels agitated or angry, people might say that the person feels heated. For this reason, cool down is a common thing to say to someone in this state.
Cool down predates cool your jets. Cool down first appeared as a slang term in America around the year 1950. Other similar expressions are to keep one’s cool, to lose/blow one’s cool, and, of course, cool your jets.
A person can use cool your jets to try to calm down someone who is upset, or merely excited and enthusiastic. If the person is in a good mood and eager to do something, then this expression has the connotation of slow down or wait a minute.
It likely comes from the literal practice of cooling jets. After a flight, a jet’s engines are hot from use and literally need to cool down.
To cool your jets appeared around the 1970s.
Examples of Cool Your Jets
In this conversation, a mother and daughter are talking about a new extracurricular activity that the daughter wants to join.
Daughter: Mom, guess what? I just tried out for the cheerleading squad and I made the team! I need a few hundred dollars to buy the required uniform and get some other equipment. Let’s go shopping right now!
Mother: Whoa, whoa, whoa! Cool your jets! You didn’t even ask me for permission. You can’t just take on a new responsibility like this all of a sudden without thinking about it first.
In this example, two coworkers are upset because of a problem in the workplace.
Dave: Did you hear that Robbie stole my coffee mug? I asked him if he took it, and he lied right to my face! He was drinking out of it when he told me he didn’t have it.
Ben: Ugh. He’s such a jerk. Oh well, there’s nothing you can do about it except for ignore him.
Dave: No, actually, there is something I can do. I can go punch him right in his stupid face!
Ben: Whoa! Cool your jets! You need to calm yourself down before you get fired. Stealing a mug is annoying, but violence in the workplace is much worse.
More Examples
This excerpt is about an upcoming on-screen kiss between two characters on a television drama. The writer is telling fans to calm down, because the character won’t be kissing the man who most people want him to kiss.
- The kiss is not with anyone you’ve met previously “Gossip Girl” (anyone who was dying to see him kiss co-star Chace Crawford, cool your jets!). –New York Daily News
This quote is from a man who was excited about an athlete’s prospects, but didn’t want to be too eager too quickly.
- “There were guys who watched him play in high school, and they couldn’t see it. I’ve also scouted long enough to know that there were players I just missed. So the scout in me is saying, ‘Hey, I think this is real,’ but the dad in me is saying, ‘Hey, cool your jets, we’ll see what happens.’ ” –LA Times
Summary
The phrase cool your jets means slow down or stop being upset.
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