cool one's heels

1. 1.

   wait or pass the time aimlessly or futilely; be kept waiting

   “She kicked her heels for hours at the gate of the Embassy”

   Synonymskick one's heels

   Broaderwait

Questions about cool one's heels

What does cool one's heels mean?

cool one's heels means "wait or pass the time aimlessly or futilely; be kept waiting".

What is another word for cool one's heels?

Close synonyms include kick one's heels. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is cool one's heels a common word?

cool one's heels is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.