warm

Less common meanings

9. 9
   nearly rightadjectivecolloquial

   Getting close to what one is seeking or to the right answer.

   Keep looking; you're warm now that you've checked the kitchen.

   Her first answer was cold, but the second was much warmer.

   UsageUsually you're getting warm or getting warmer, in guessing games.

   Similarclose

   Oppositecold

   Note

   A metaphor borrowed from children's games: in blind-man's-buff, a seeker is told "warm" as they close in on the target. William Black's Madcap Violet (1876) still marks the word as children's talk. Source

   Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 3 facts

   • Children use "warm" in blind-man's-buff when the seeker approaches the target. en.wiktionary.org
   • William Black wrote Madcap Violet, published in 1876. static-prod.lib.princeton.edu
   • The novel explicitly associates this meaning with children's speech. en.wiktionary.org
10. 10
    fresh (trail)adjective

    Of a scent or trail: fresh and still strong enough to be traced.

    The hounds picked up a warm scent near the riverbank.

    A warm trail meant the fox had passed only minutes earlier.

    Similarfresh, hot, recent

    Oppositecold, stale

11. 11
    get excitedverbtransitive

    To stir interest, eagerness, or zeal in someone; to make a person engaged or animated.

    The candidate's bold promises warmed the crowd, who began cheering and waving their signs.

    A few funny stories can warm an audience before the speaker turns to serious matters.

    UsageOften warm up a crowd or audience, which is what a warm-up act does.

12. 12
    passionateadjectivearchaic

    Marked by ardent, zealous feeling; passionately eager about a cause or belief.

    The pamphlet found warm advocates among the young reformers.

    She was a warm partisan in every political quarrel of her day.

    Note

    Heat as strength of feeling, now mostly a period flavor: Milton's "warm desire," Gibbon's "warm persuasion" of the soul's immortality. A warm debate still sounds natural, but older prose sets a trap. For Addison in 1712, a warm man "does not care to be made mouths at": he is quick to take offense. Yet the "prosperous" meaning uses the very same phrase for a man with money. Source

    Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 5 facts

    • Milton wrote “warm desire.” gutenberg.org
    • Gibbon used “warm persuasion” in discussing the soul’s immortality. gutenberg.org
    • The passage appears in The Spectator, No. 481, dated September 11, 1712, credited to Addison alone. The speaker is an unnamed coffeehouse “Wiseacre.” gutenberg.org
    • The passage describes a “warm man” who dislikes being mocked, supporting the interpretation “quick to take offense.” gutenberg.org
    • “A warm man” can also mean a prosperous man. en.wiktionary.org
13. 13
    spankverbcolloquialtransitive

    To beat or spank someone, especially as a form of punishment.

    The old farmer threatened to warm the boys' backsides for stealing his apples.

    Grandpa warmed our hides whenever we raided the orchard.

    Similarspank, thrash, beat, whip, tan

    Note

    A threat more than a description. "I'll warm your bottom," says Myrtle in The Atlantic of 1945, in a list of threats that includes the bogeyman. The heat is the sting a spanking leaves behind. Source

    Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 2 facts

    • The quotation is cited from The Atlantic in 1945. en.wiktionary.org
    • Myrtle threatens to warm someone's bottom, alongside a threat involving the bogeyman. gutenbergcanada.ca
14. 14
    adjectivearchaic

    Well off in property or money; prosperous and comfortably situated.

    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

    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

    Note

    Money as comfort. In Goldsmith's The Vicar of Wakefield (1766), a man is vouched for as warm so that a draft drawn on him, payable at sight, will pass as good as cash. In Charlotte Smith's Celestina (1791), a man gradually earns that name in the city. Washington Irving's "warm householders" are the Stuyvesants, praised as an old, respectable family with no upstarts among them.

15. 15
    adjectivearchaic

    Requiring strenuous, demanding effort; arduous.

    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

    Note

    Here the heat and the effort blur together. The Listener in 1929 calls tyring wheels on an iron platform "a warm job," work that is both hot and hard.

16. 16
    verb

    To prepopulate a cache so that its contents are loaded and ready before other users request them.
17. 17
    verb

    To send mail from a domain in gradually increasing volume so that providers build trust in its sending reputation.
18. 18
    verbcolloquial

    To scold or verbally abuse someone, often sharply.