Definition
adjOf a somewhat high temperature, often but not always connoting that the high temperature is pleasant rather than uncomfortable.
adjFriendly and with affection.
Sentence Examples
You're starting to warm up now.
The air became warm.
Come in and warm yourself by the fire.
Word Origin & History
Etymology tree
Proto-Germanic *warmaz
Proto-West Germanic *warm
Old English wearm
Middle English warm
English warm
From Middle English warm, werm, from Old English wearm, from Proto-West Germanic *warm, from Proto-Germanic *warmaz, from one of:
* Proto-Indo-European *wór-mo-s, from *wer- (“to burn”), which is related to Hittite 𒉿𒊏𒀀𒉌 (warāni, “to burn”), Armenian վառել (vaṙel, “to burn, heat, warm”), Old Church Slavonic варити (variti, “to cook, boil”).
* Proto-Indo-European *gʷʰor-mo-s, from the root *gʷʰer- (“warm, hot”), in which case cognate with Ancient Greek θερμός (thermós) (making perhaps a distant doublet of thermos), Latin formus, Sanskrit घर्म (gharmá).
In any case cognate within Germanic to West Frisian waarm, Saterland Frisian woorm, Dutch warm, German warm, Swedish varm, Icelandic varmur.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"Warm and still is the summer night."
— 1863, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Herons of Elmwood:
"It seemed I was too excited for sleep, too warm, too young."
— 1985, Robert Ferro, Blue Star:
"While the study doesn’t directly shed light on why, it suggested that maintaining a similar degree of mobility as the climate changed to the warmer and wetter pattern we have today could have imparted additional stress as the mammoth encountered unfamiliar environments or restricted its movement."
— 2021 August 12, Katie Hunt, “Mammoths were the original ‘ice road truckers,’ traveling vast distances across the Arctic”, in CNN:
"Kids jump into Lake Michigan during unseasonably warm conditions in Chicago on February 26, 2024. […] This winter was the warmest on record for the Lower 48, NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information said Friday. Records date to the late 1800s."
— 2024 March 8, Mary Gilbert and Eric Zerkel, “Winter is over, and it was the warmest on record. Here’s what the US missed out on this season”, in CNN:
"That was a further clue; and here, indeed, young Mr. Dowse was getting "warm," as children say at blind-man's-buff, although, as a matter-of-fact, she had now been talking of George Miller at all."
— 1876, William Black, “An Encounter”, in Madcap Violet. […], volume III, London: Macmillan and Co., →OCLC, page 74: