Chilled

How to spell chilled

7 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce chilled

What does chilled mean?

1. adjectiveMade or kept cold, especially food or drink lowered to a low temperature.
2. adjectiveInformally, calm, easygoing, and free of stress or tension.

Chilled in a sentence

• The waiter served a bottle of chilled white wine.

• The office had a chilled atmosphere on Friday afternoons.

• The dessert needs to stay chilled until guests arrive.

• He stayed remarkably chilled despite the tight deadline.

Where does chilled come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word grows from the noun and verb 'chill', which descends from the Old English 'ciele' or 'cele', meaning 'cold, coolness, or frost'. That noun belongs to a wider Germanic family tied to the idea of coldness, and it shares deep roots with words like 'cool' and 'cold'. For centuries 'chill' was mainly a noun for a sensation of cold, and only later did it settle into a verb meaning 'to make or become cold'. The form 'chilled' is simply that verb plus the regular '-ed' ending, used both as a past tense and as an adjective for something cooled. In the late twentieth century the slang sense of being relaxed and untroubled grew out of the phrase 'chill out', giving 'chilled' a calm, easygoing flavour alongside its older temperature meaning.

How the word is built

• chill (Old English ciele: cold)
• -ed (past participle/adjective suffix)