warm over

English

Verb

warm over (third-person singular simple present warms over, present participle warming over, simple past and past participle warmed over)

1. To reheat food that was previously cooked.
   • 1873 December, Pipsissiway Potts [pseudonym; Rosella Rice], “The Deacon's Household”, in Arthur's Illustrated Home Magazine, volume XLI, number 12, Philadelphia, P.A.: T. S. Arther & Son, page 793, column 1:

     If you have fried mush left in slices from breakfast, it can be warmed in the oven and made as good as new, or cold fried eggs can be warmed over, or new ones boiled in a trice.

   • 1994, Norah Hess, Sage, New York, N.Y.: Leisure Books, →ISBN, pages 336–337:

     He warmed over the remains of last night's coffee, ate a beef sandwich, and then continued on toward Cheyenne, the mount readily taking the gallop asked of him.

   • 2004, Steve Frazee, Eric Frazee, Tower of Rocks: A Western Duo, Waterville, M.E.: Five Star, →ISBN, page 159:

     Hale saved half the steak to be warmed over for breakfast.

2. (figuratively) To present an unoriginal and hackneyed idea; to rehash.
   • 2005, Rodney Page, Pete Tosh, Leading Your Business to the Next Level: The Six Core Disciplines of Sustained Profitable Growth, Westport, C.T., London: Praeger, →ISBN, page 77:

     Growth companies, like most others, face several challenges when developing a budget. They include: […] Building a budget that reflects the dynamic environment in which growth companies exist; not just "warming over" last year's version.

   • 2016 July 18, Joy Williams, “Stuff”, in The New Yorker‎^[1], New York, N.Y.: Condé Nast Publications, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2023-07-24:

     He had never written about buttercups. Never. He had warmed over the dead gods of the months and he had written about wasps a couple of times, wrung some wonder from contemplating their world of insectual intent—the papery nests, the cells of mathematical perfection, the nurses and the workers, the grubs that waited for transformation behind their silken doors, their black eyes perfectly visible. . . . One column had been particularly good, something about wasps in the fall, crawling into houses or garages to prolong their lives a little.

   • 2022 October 25, Philip Bump, “Yeah, Ted Cruz’s book doesn’t show any voter fraud”, in The Washington Post‎^[2], Washington, D.C.: The Washington Post Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2022-10-26:

     When Cruz does talk about fraud in the book, he does so in an amusingly lawyerly way. He’s more than willing to warm over a wide array of right-wing boogeymen from the days of yore — both ACORN and the New Black Panther Party make appearances — but he generally constrains his claims about fraud in ways that leave him an escape hatch back to reality.

   • 2022 December 20, Tyler Austin Harper, “Avatar 2 Is a Sappy Valentine to the Myth of the "Ecological Indian"”, in Slate‎^[3], archived from the original on 2023-08-07:

     Most regrettably, Cameron's metaphorical musings on Indigenous history—which earned both praise and accusations of "white saviorism" upon the first film's release—have been merely warmed over the second time around.

3. (figuratively) To fill with warmth and coziness
   • 1911 October, George Parkin Atwater, “The Ministry: An Over-Crowded Profession”, in The Atlantic Monthly‎^[4], volume 108, number 4, Boston, M.A., New York, N.Y.: The Atlantic Monthly Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2022-09-28, page 484, column 1:

     Too many sermons merely warm over our emotions. We are aroused, it may be, Sunday after Sunday, but men and women need more than arousing. They need instruction and training. They desire to know what to do.

   • 1991 September 22, “Welcome To The Jungle”, in Newsweek‎^[5], New York, N.Y.: Newsweek Publishing LLC, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2022-12-01:

     or these acts-Natalie Cole, Mariah Carey, Michael Bolton, Harry Connick Jr.-love can still conquer all, and cozy traditionalism warms over all of life.

   • 2015, Dolores Durando, And Yesterday Is Gone, New York, N.Y. […]: Infinite Words, →ISBN, page 105:

     I pulled the chain on the bedside lamp, the dark became my own, and a great peace warmed over me.

   • 2018 November 24, Charles Holmes, “The Raw, Rushed Making of ’808s & Heartbreak,’ Kanye West’s Most Influential Album”, in Rolling Stone‎^[6], New York, N.Y.: Penske Media Corporation, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2023-08-04:

     The warbled and robotic voice once meant to denote distance and detachment has now been warmed over. The untrained voices and unsung melodies of countless artists — mostly men and women of color — were let loose upon the world to rewrite the foundations of pop.

4. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see warm,‎ over.
   • 2020 October 2, Chris Feliciano Arnold, “Captain Chain Saw’s Delusion”, in The New York Times‎^[7], New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2023-04-30:

     As the planet warms over the next decades, the Amazon will become a cradle of human discovery or an ecological crime scene.

Related terms

• warmed-over

 

Translations

to reheat previously cooked food

• Finnish: lämmittää (fi)

to present an unoriginal idea

• Finnish: lämmittää (fi)

Further reading

• “warm over”, in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present.
• “warm over”, in Cambridge English Dictionary, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, 1999–present.
• “warm over”, in Collins English Dictionary.

Anagrams

• overwarm