Warmth

How to spell warmth

6 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce warmth

What does warmth mean?

1. nounA pleasant, moderate degree of heat.
2. nounFriendliness, affection, or kindly feeling shown towards others.

Warmth in a sentence

• The warmth of the radiator filled the small office.

• She greeted every guest with genuine warmth and a smile.

• We sat by the fire to enjoy its warmth on a cold night.

• The manager spoke of his retiring colleague with real warmth.

Where does warmth come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Warmth is a native English word built on the adjective 'warm', which descends from Old English 'wearm', a thoroughly Germanic word with relatives in Dutch 'warm' and German 'warm'. The ending '-th' is the same old noun-making suffix seen in 'length' from 'long', 'depth' from 'deep', and 'strength' from 'strong'; it turns a quality into the name of that quality, so warmth literally means 'the state of being warm'. The form is recorded from around the 1100s, and from early on it carried both the literal sense of moderate heat and the figurative sense of kindly, affectionate feeling. The spelling trap is that the silent path of the mouth tempts writers to drop the 'r' before the 'm', yet warmth keeps the 'r' of 'warm' intact and simply adds '-th' on the end.

How the word is built

• warm (warm)
• -th (noun-forming suffix denoting a state or quality)