lukewarm
Adjective Satellite
- moderately warm
- "he hates lukewarm coffee"
- feeling or showing little interest or enthusiasm
- "gave only lukewarm support to the candidate"
Adj
- Between warm and cool.
- Unenthusiastic (about a proposal or an idea).
Adjective
- Moderately warm; tepid; also, lacking enthusiasm or conviction.
Examples
- His opponent’s lukewarm plays suggested they’d given up on winning the game.
- My curry is lukewarm.
- The suggestion met with only a lukewarm response.
- Wash it in lukewarm water.
Origin / Etymology
From Middle English leukwarm, lukewarm (“lukewarm, tepid”), equivalent to luke (“lukewarm”) + warm. Compare Saterland Frisian luukwoarm (“lukewarm”), German Low German luukwarm (“lukewarm”), German lauwarm (“lukewarm”). First element believed to be an alteration of Middle English lew (“tepid”) (> English dialectal lew), from Old English hlēow (“warm, sunny”), from Proto-Germanic *hliwjaz, *hlēwaz, *hlūmaz, *hleumaz (“warm”), from Proto-Indo-European *ḱal(w)e-, *ḱel(w)e-, *k(')lēw- (“warm, hot”). Cognate with Dutch lauw (“tepid”), German lau (“lukewarm”), Faroese lýggjur (“warm”), Swedish ljum (“lukewarm”), ljummen (“lukewarm”) and ly (“warm”), Danish lummer (“muggy”), Danish and Norwegian lunken (“tepid”), dialectal Swedish ljummen (“lukewarm”).
Synonyms
half-hearted, halfhearted, tepid, Laodicean, adiaphroistic, apathetic, apathistical, blasé, cool, dispassionate, dull, enervated, gallionic, heartless, impassive, indifferent, ineffervescible, insensible, insouciant, jaded, lackadaisical, languid, languorous, lethargic, lew, listless, lotophagous, luke, lukewarm, mopey, nonchalant, nonplussed, phlegmatic, pococurante, shiftless, spiritless, supine, torpedinous, torpid, unaroused, uncaring, unconcerned, unenthusiastic, unimpressible, uninterested, unlively, unmoved, untouched, unzealous, world-weary
Scrabble Score: 17
lukewarm: valid Scrabble (US) TWL Wordlukewarm: valid Scrabble Word in Merriam-Webster MW Dictionary
lukewarm: valid Scrabble Word in International Collins CSW Dictionary