tepid, a.
(ˈtɛpɪd)
Also 5 teped, 6 tepit.
[ad. L. tepid-us lukewarm, f. tepēre to be warm. So obs. or dial. F. tépide (16th c. in Godef.).]
Moderately or slightly warm; lukewarm. a. lit. (Usually in reference to liquids.)
| c 1400 Lanfranc's Cirurgie 137 He worchiþ riȝtfulliche þat vsiþ teped oilis. 1626 Bacon Sylva §346 For as a great heat keepeth bodies from putrefaction, but a tepid heat inclineth them to putrefaction. 1664 Evelyn Kal. Hort. (1729) 201 Let the Water stand in the Sun till it grow tepid. 1744 Berkeley Siris §78 A blister on the spot, and plenty of tepid tar-water. 1884 F. M. Crawford Rom. Singer ii, A cold sirocco, bringing showers of tepid rain from the south. |
b. fig. = lukewarm 2.
| 1513 Douglas æneis xi. Prol. 60 Gyf Crystis faithfull knychtis lyst ws be,..Than man we..Nowder be abasit, tepit, nor ȝit blunt. 1641 Gauden Love of Truth 30 A tepid and Laodicean love. 1740 Cheyne Regimen 333 Of the two Evils, Infidelity and Tepidity is..the worst..in regard of the Infidels and Tepid themselves. 1873 H. Spencer Stud. Sociol. viii. (1874) 179 Remind them of certain precepts..in the creed they profess, and the most you get is a tepid assent. 1926 Scribner's Mag. Sept. 259/2 Her smile said that pastels were thin things for tepid people. 1941 A. Christie Evil under Sun x. 197 Some tepid little man, vain and sensitive—the kind of man who broods. |
Hence
ˈtepidly adv., in a tepid or lukewarm manner;
ˈtepidness = tepidity. So
† ˈtepidous a., tepid, lukewarm (
obs.).
| 1696 Phillips (ed. 5), *Tepidly, lukewarm. 1873 H. Spencer Stud. Sociol. viii. (1874) 179 The precepts tepidly assented to. |
| 1821 Byron Diary Poet. Wks. (1846) 510/2 Some *tepid-ness on the part of Kean, or warmth on that of the author. 1903 Ld. Rosebery in Westm. Gaz. 13 Oct. 8/2 This may explain a slight tepidness on the part of Australia. |
| 1607 J. Carpenter Plaine Mans Plough 186 Those Angells..which were sometime *tepidous and backeward. |