I've been wondering about the word 'luke'
It apparently comes from Middle English (leu?) and/or Old English (hleow) and means mildly warm.
So where does this leave 'lukewarm'? Isn't that just 'warm' twofold? That's some exceptionally warm water!
The etymology confuses me as well, because in German it's very similar: 'lauwarm'.
Any ideas (or an OED ID)!


btw. I ran this through the site search and came up with a mere one use of lukewarm (but a good one)....
Jackie:
tepidemic -- lukewarm disease