lukecold

comparative more lukecold · superlative most lukecold

1. rareBetween warm and cool temperatures, but cooler than lukewarm.

   Jeff took a slug of his lukecold beer.

   2009, Geoff Dyer, Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi, Edinburgh: Canongate, →ISBN, page 46

   3 more examples

   A hot, more strictly speaking, a luke-cold, bath was welcome at this point, and in the dry clothes brought by the poste and a new pair of slippers, purchased on the spot for two and a half francs, I was perfectly comfortable, and, as usual, in that happy frame of mind that a hard day's tramp always brings.

   1920, Earl Trumbull Williams, Diary of a trip abroad in the summer of 1910, →LCCN, page 185

   When Mrs. Whittle asked Billie if the water in the Rest Room was cold, Billie replied in the affirmative, but Mrs. Whittle, after taking a drink of it, said: “Billie, that water is not cold,” to which Billie replied: “Well, it is luke cold.”

   1921, Pollyanna Wigginton, “Keyboard Klippings”, in Jeffry Service, volume VII, number IX, Jeffrey Manufacturing Company, page 12

   She put her hand on a luke-cold milk bottle and said, "Did Rudy come today?"

   1983 [1981], John Crowley, “The Art of Memory”, in Little, Big, Bantam Books, →ISBN, page 459

2. rareNot very enthusiastic (about a proposal or an idea) and less enthusiastic than lukewarm would imply.

   In Texas, Conservative Price Daniel gave lukecold support to the Kennedy-Johnson ticket but had blazing hot support from the voters, who gave him a runaway third-term victory over Dallas Republican William Steger.

   1960 November 16, “The Election: The States: The Governers”, in Time, volume LXXVI, number 20A, →ISSN, page 13

   1 more example

   Since industry is the principal supporter and indirectly financiers of the regulating bodies, the response by said group is veritably lukecold to those who fall in the human sub-set of sensitive reactions to pesticides.

   1991 May 9, Robert G. Haines, “Pesticide consulting services, co.: expert witness testimony on SB-849”, in Issues Related to the Use and Application of Lawn Care Chemicals, 102nd United States Congress, page 230