warm

comparative warmer · superlative warmest · alternative obsolete warme

1. Of a somewhat high temperature, often but not always connoting that the high temperature is pleasant rather than uncomfortable.

   The tea is still warm.

   5 more examples

   This is a very warm room.

   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, archived from the original on 14 Apr 2022

   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, Eric Zerkel, “Winter is over, and it was the warmest on record. Here’s what the US missed out on this season”, in CNN, archived from the original on 23 Mar 2024

2. Friendly and with affection.

   We have a warm friendship.

3. Having a color in the part of the visible electromagnetic spectrum between red and yellow-green.
4. informalClose to a goal or correct answer.

   Earlier you were way off, but now you're getting warmer.

   1 more example

   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

5. Fresh, of a scent; still able to be traced.
6. figurativelyCommunicating a sense of comfort, ease, or pleasantness.

   a warm piano sound

7. archaicArdent, zealous.

   a warm debate, with strong words exchanged

   4 more examples

   Mirth, and youth, and warm desire!

   1646 (indicated as 1645), John Milton, “Song on May Morning”, in Poems of Mr. John Milton, […], London: […] Ruth Raworth for Humphrey Mosely, […], →OCLC

   They say he's a warm man and does not care to be made mouths at.

   1712 September 21 (Gregorian calendar), [Joseph Addison; Richard Steele et al.], “WEDNESDAY, September 11, 1712”, in The Spectator, number 481; republished in Alexander Chalmers, editor, The Spectator; a New Edition, […], volume V, New York, N.Y.: D[aniel] Appleton & Company, 1853, →OCLC

   To the strength and fierceness of barbarians they added a contempt for life, which was derived from a warm persuasion of the immortality and transmigration of the soul.

   1776–1788, Edward Gibbon, chapter I, in The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, volume (please specify |volume=I to VI), London: […] W[illiam] Strahan; and T[homas] Cadell, […], →OCLC

   I had been none of the warmest of partisans.

   1850, Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, a Romance, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor, Reed, and Fields, →OCLC

8. datedinformalWell off as to property, or in good circumstances; prosperous.

   That’s right; that’s the way he’s made his bit. He’s a warm man, is Mr. Noakes.

   1937, Dorothy L. Sayers, Busman's Honeymoon

   4 more examples

   You shall have a draught upon him, payable at sight: and let me tell you he is as warm a man as any within five miles round him.

   1766, [Oliver Goldsmith], The Vicar of Wakefield: […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), Salisbury, Wiltshire: […] B. Collins, for F[rancis] Newbery, […], →OCLC

   Mrs. and the Miss Cathcarts began to be considered as people of some consequence in the circle in which they moved, while he gradually obtained in the city the name of a warm man.

   1791, Charlotte Smith, Celestina, Broadview, published 2004, page 258

   I know the Stuyvesant family —puff— every one of them —puff— not a more respectable family in the province —puff— old standards —puff— warm householders —puff— none of your upstarts

   1824, Geoffrey Crayon [pseudonym; Washington Irving], Tales of a Traveller, (please specify |part=1 to 4), Philadelphia, Pa.: H[enry] C[harles] Carey & I[saac] Lea, […], →OCLC

   And he'd leave missis the house and enough money to keep it up in style. He was a warm man, it seems.

   1905, E. Nesbit, “Molly, the measles, and the missing will”, in Oswald Bastable and Others

9. archaicRequiring arduous effort.

   The circular iron platform over there is used in the task of tyring the wheels, a warm job, too, by the way.

   1929, The Listener, numbers 41-50, page 552

present singular third person warms · participle present warming · participle past warmed · past warmed · alternative obsolete warme

1. transitiveTo make or keep warm.

   enough to warm, but not enough to burn

   1825, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Morituri Salutamus

   1 more example

   Then shall it [an ash tree] be for a man to burn; for he will take thereof and warm himself.

   1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Isaiah 44 44-Chapter-15/# 15

2. intransitiveTo become warm, to heat up.

   My socks are warming by the fire.

   1 more example

   The earth soon warms on a clear summer day.

3. intransitive(sometimes in the form warm up) To favour increasingly.

   He is warming to the idea.

   2 more examples

   Mr. Campion appeared suitably impressed and she warmed to him. He was very easy to talk to with those long clown lines in his pale face, a natural goon, born rather too early she suspected.

   1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 5, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC

   Her classmates are gradually warming to her.

4. ditransitiveTo cause (someone) to favour (something) increasingly.

   It is with no small degree of irony that I confess that immersing myself in an interdisciplinary project has warmed me to the seductions of disciplinary perspectives.

   2006, Matt Wray, Not Quite White, page xi

5. intransitiveTo become ardent or animated.

   The speaker warms as he proceeds.

6. transitiveTo make engaged or earnest; to interest; to engage; to excite ardor or zeal in; to enliven.

   1717 November 20, Alexander Pope, letter to the Bishop of Rochester there was a collection of all that had been written […] : I warmed my head with them.

   1 more example

   Bright hopes, that erst the bosom warmed.

   1827, [John Keble], The Christian Year: Thoughts in Verse for the Sundays and Holydays throughout the Year, volume (please specify |volume=I or II), Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] [B]y W. Baxter, for J. Parker; and C[harles] and J[ohn] Rivington, […], →OCLC

7. transitiveTo give emotional warmth to a person.

   That is just the way God tells me this book is His Word. I read it, and it warms me and gives me light.

   1886, Joseph Augustus Seiss, Right Life: Or, Candid Talks On Vital Themes

8. colloquialtransitiveTo beat or spank.

   Not bothering to turn around and not missing a mouthful, Myrtle comforted her with threats of "I'll warm your bottom"; "I'll turn you over to your dad"; "I'll lock you in the truck"; "I'll send for the bogey man" — all of which Darleen ignored […]

   1945, The Atlantic, volume 176, page 94

9. colloquialtransitiveTo scold or abuse verbally.
10. transitivecomputingTo prepopulate (a cache) so that its contents are ready for other users.

    Synonyms: warm up

11. InternettransitiveTo send electronic mail from (a domain) to improve its reputation for mail sending.

    Synonyms: warm up

plural warms · alternative obsolete warme

1. colloquialThe act of warming, or the state of being warmed; a heating.

   Shall I give your coffee a warm in the microwave?

   1 more example

   Sit ye down before the fire , my dear , and have a warm

   1843 December 19, Charles Dickens, “(please specify the page number)”, in A Christmas Carol. […], London: Chapman & Hall, […], →OCLC