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Luke warm

Posted by Nigel Eddis on November 04, 2000

In Reply to: Luke warm posted by Bruce Kahl on October 02, 2000

: : Who's "Luke"? Why not just ie: "warm water"?

: "Luke" was a Middle English word, now obsolete, meaning "warm," which was based on "lew," another word for "warm." "Lew," in turn, was derived from the Old English word "hleow," meaning "warm."."Lukewarm" actually amounts to saying "warm-warm," but this sort of redundancy is common when obsolete words are carried over into modern usage.

: If we trace "hleow" back a bit further, we find the Latin word "calor," meaning "heat." "Calor" gave us "calorie" (a measure of heat), "cauldron," and, from the derivative word "calere" ("to be hot"), the word "nonchalant," describing someone who stays cool.

I'm sure this is correct - worth noting perhaps is that German has virtually the same word, 'lauwarm' (Lau rhymes with cow).

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