Exploring The Strange Etymology Of The Word ‘Lukewarm’

English is a pretty neat language. Heck, we use it around here every day! But anyone who’s studied it for any length of time knows there are some unusual habits and rules surrounding the words English-speakers use.

And while we could spend hours debating the purpose of silent letters or exceptions to the i-before-e rule, we’re going to take this opportunity to dissect one specific word: lukewarm.

Looking for an antonym

The opposite of warm is cool … so why isn’t the opposite of lukewarm lukecool?

Urban Dictionary has included “lukecool” in its database for more than a decade. It’s also shown up in documents from a U.S. appeals court speech in the ‘70s to the Current Archaeology journal the following decade.

But traditional dictionaries haven’t followed suit … even though the existence of the word lukewarm seems to presuppose that its opposite would also exist.

Linguist D. Gary Miller explained that “some words do not exist despite an obvious need,” though “lukecool” could still happen.

“Nothing but tradition makes ‘luke’ acceptable as a qualifier of warmth but not coolness,” he said. “Since only tradition stands in the way of ‘lukecool,’ there is no reason it could not become generally accepted if enough people started using it.”

All about the roots

Common usage is the driving force behind why a particular word gains traction and another one doesn’t, and “lukewarm” has time (and etymology) on its side. While most folks might just assume that “luke” is another way of saying “sort of,” its roots seem to date back to the 12th century, when it was used as an adjective roughly equivalent to “sunny.”

So since there’s already a warm aspect to its Old English predecessor, it makes more sense that we typically only associated it with the word “lukewarm.”

Chris Agee March 9th, 2024

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