lauwarme

Lauwarme is a Dutch adjective describing a temperature that sits between cool and warm, commonly translated into English as lukewarm. The term is widely used in everyday language as well as in culinary and domestic contexts to indicate that something should not be served hot or cold.

In practical usage, lauwer is applied to foods, beverages, and liquids that are warmed but not heated to a hot temperature. Examples include lauwarme melk, lauw warme koffie, or lauwwar water used to activate yeast in baking. The descriptor helps convey a specific, moderate temperature without prescribing an exact degree.

Etymology and variants: the word is formed from the stem lauw- (lukewarm) combined with warm. It has cognates in other Germanic languages, such as German lauwarm and English lukewarm. In Dutch spelling, lauwwarm is the standard base form; inflected forms such as lauwwarme are used before feminine singular nouns (for example, de lauwwarme melk). Some writers may encounter variants like lauwarme in casual or informal writing, though lauwwarm remains the conventional form.

Temperature precision: there is no universal fixed numeric threshold for lauwarm in Dutch. The exact temperature depends on context, preference, and safety considerations. In professional or precise contexts, specifying a numeric range (for example, for yeast activation or baby milk) is preferred over relying on the qualitative label lauwwarm.