Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Moderately warm; lukewarm.
- adj. Lacking in emotional warmth or enthusiasm; halfhearted: "the tepid conservatism of the fifties” ( Irving Howe).
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Moderately warm; lukewarm.
Wiktionary
- adj. Lukewarm; neither warm nor cool.
- adj. Uninterested; exhibiting little passion or eagerness.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Moderately warm; lukewarm.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. moderately warm
- adj. feeling or showing little interest or enthusiasm
Etymologies
- From Latin tepidus. (Wiktionary)
- Middle English, from Latin tepidus, from tepēre, to be lukewarm. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Former Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a Shiite, also took a stab at what he called a tepid U.S. response to the unrest against the tiny island's Sunni monarchy.”
“I haven't read this, but I did read Esslemont's Night of Knives and I thought it was a bit meh, so I am not surprised that "tepid" is the one word applied to this volume.”
Ian Cameron Esslemont - Return of the Crimson Guard (Book Review)
“Given the long-term tepid outlook for the world economy, is the near-future the right time to force those costs down consumers' throats?”
The Huffington Post: Steve Parker: EPA Rates Volt and Leaf: What's Your Choice?
“And from its crimson source in tepid channels flow.”
“Beneath this window is a broad divan, and here, laved in tepid sea winds and soothed by rippling whispers against the ship's side, I sleep – the langorous, voluptuous sleep of the tropics; ... sink softly into that dim warm flood where one lies drenched, submerged in unconsciousness; a flood that ebbs slowly, slowly – bearing with it all fatigue and satiety – and leaves me on the shores of life again in a pale lilac dusk glimmering with great stars ....”
“These good global numbers hide, however, a more complex reality, namely a tepid recovery in many advanced economies, and a much stronger one in most emerging and developing economies.”
The Huffington Post: World Faces Serious New Economic Challenges
“BLITZER: President Obama is now using the toughest language yet to condemn Iran's crackdown on political protesters after a week of what his critics called a tepid response.”
“That said, even as a conservative, I believe my bias towards John Tory could have been most charitably described as tepid I did not support him for leader, and as recently as two weeks ago I was not very impressed.”
“So, White House Spokesman Gordon Johndroe is saying the President feels that his so-called tepid endorsement of Maliki was misreported, and that he wants to make clear today that he's fully behind Maliki.”
“Tom Gullikson, the captain from 1994-99, recalls the tepid response he and the team received after a dramatic win against Russia in 1995 when Sampras won all three of the USA's points in one of the best efforts in Cup history.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘tepid’.
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important
shamanism, consol, sanguine, iffy, affinity, concatenation, honed, innumberable, aiden, inexorable, vet, suss and 176 more...
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LIT - Ulysses - key words and phrases
money cowrie, bedraggle, omphalos, ineluctable, postprandial, bladderwrack, modality barnacle..., loofah, shipworm, cither, embattle, Malachi and 503 more...
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11250 more...
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The weird, the wonderful and the plai...
Loved for their ingenuity, an exact description, or simply for the pure joy of it.
acidulous, aprosdoketon, higgledy-piggledy, lexicographical, ninja, audacious, somnabulist, shivaree, amorphous, quidnunc, glib, melancholy and 353 more...
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food collection
bread, peel, pot, chorizo, Filet, olive, fill, Phyllo, dough, bake, mat, pinot and 988 more...
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Express Yourself
Words Describing Emotions
abhor, diffident, bullience, effusice, enervate, frenetic, impetuous, implacable, listless, mercurial, rancorous, reticent and 7 more...
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passive
words of inaction
tepid, languid, stagnant, inertia, effete, mired, soporific, reticent, taciturn, mollify, nebbish, milquetoast and 13 more...
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Words from Moby Dick
frigate, presumptuous, genteel, succor, hearthstone, gentry, factitious, bilious, insurgent, portent, enervate, genuflect and 303 more...
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Words I Should Use More Often
Words that I'll use to sound erudite.
fungible, aggrandizement, tete-a-tete, sententious, serendipitous, fortuitous, lugubrious, declivity, propitiatory, volubility, august, tenebrous and 214 more...
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GRE Words
abjure, unswear, state, rescission, indemnification, ab, reny, abnegate, vitiated, vitiate, adumbrated, abash and 378 more...
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Wharton, Edith. Age of Innocence. 1920
A list of difficult words for L2-12 learners.
Faust, erection, metropolitan, splendor, shabby, conservatives, cherished, inconvenient, clung, acoustics, coupe, scramble and 261 more...
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eesome
Includes any intangible conceivable independently of Hom. Sap.
depthless, overspire, unsteady, thitherward, rile, munchable, covet, pastinaceous, mirtle, slonk, tink, inerrarable and 345 more...
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List 1
erudite, iniquitous, acrimonious, implacable, fractious, irascible, debonair, churlish, brusque, sycophantic, phlegmatic, indomitable and 108 more...
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Naresh_Gre
The path meanders through the vineyards
meander, labyrinth, Sinuous, gyrate, caron, awry, credo, banter, juxtaposition, argot, inexorable, foibles and 223 more...
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ADW1
obdurate, obstinate, behest, injunction, enjoin, circumspect, ensconce, discursive, lugubrious, doleful, somber, ken and 2476 more...
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Vocab++
Words as I learn them.
fetid, mezzanine, hiatus, austerity, subliminal, resplendent, implacable, impugn, debase, exiguous, cirque, holster and 2538 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for tepid.

bilby Can't rule out the metaphorical. May 13, 2009
cxkang strictly physical context? May 13, 2009