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> Lukewarm isn't a good candidate for an antonym, because it describes a specific temperature. Not an exact specific temperature, one can't mark "lukewarm" on a
by johnfn 3y ago
> Lukewarm isn't a good candidate for an antonym, because it describes a specific temperature. Not an exact specific temperature, one can't mark "lukewarm" on a thermometer, but consider being presented with two bowls of soup and asked which is "more lukewarm". Either neither is, one is and the other isn't, or both are, lukewarm. In the last case, how do you decide which is more so? Is it the slightly warmer one, or the slightly cooler one?
Wait, but if one is hot, and one is medium, I'm obviously picking the medium one. Seems easy enough to do a comparison to me.
I think perhaps a stronger reframing of your argument is that if you want an antonym, you want to take what you have and flip around some middle point, e.g. happy gets flipped to sad because it's "flipped" around neutral, etc. But lukewarm pretty much is the middle point, so flipping it has no effect.
- samatman 3y ago> Wait, but if one is hot, and one is medium, I'm obviously picking the medium one. Seems easy enough to do a comparison to me. Ok, I can see how what I said was unclear. Maybe not unclear, but it could have been phrased more plainly. If one is lukewarm and the other is not, the comparison is easy. But if both are plausibly lukewarm and one is a little warmer than the other, which one is "more" lukewarm? That isn't really how the word works, y'know? I don't think you'd get a repeatable answer out of different people on that, whereas a bowl of lukewarm soup, and one which is not-lukewarm in either direction, there will be a strong consensus as to which is which.
- koliber 3y agoRe: repeatability, if you presented a bunch of people with bowls of soup and asked them to label them as hot, warm, or lukewarm, you would not get perfect consensus. However, there would be some consensus. The problem is that the word "warm" can mean a point on a temperature scale as well as a comparable quality. You can use it as a comparative adjective: this soup is warmer than the other soup. You can also use it as a label: this soup is warm. Lukewarm only works as a label and you would not say that the soup is more lukewarm than the other. "Hot" is similar to "warm" in that regard, as it can be used to compare and to label. There are other temperature-related words which are like lukewarm, and can be used to label but not to compare. Scalding is one that comes to mind, and it has antonyms such as frigid.