Cooldown is the term given to the amount of time a tool takes, after its use, to recharge and become usable again. In the Creature Stage, all non-social abilities have cooldown timers, with Bite being least, then Spit, Strike, and Charge having the longest cooldowns. In Galactic Adventures, there is also a similar effect with Captain weapons.
If you do not want to wait until the cooldown ends, simply save the game and play it again. This will "finish"/"reset" the cooldown instantly. This is particularly handy when using consequence abilities as it can completely mitigate their long cooldown timers.
In the Creature Stage, the Sprint ability technically has two cooldown timers: the ability itself, and the sprint meter, which do not refill at the same rate. Using Sprint as soon as it recharges due to the sprint meter depleting will result in having only 30-40% of the normal duration.