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What word other than hot can I use to make the distinction between hot as in temperature and hot as in very spicy food? Especially in connection with food, the word hot is very ambiguous (well, unless it's chili-spiced ice cream, I suppose). Many other languages have a distinction and use separate words. What about English? Clarification: I know that I can use the word spicy, I'm more interested in avoiding the ambiguity when using the word hot (meaning temperature). Perhaps that was unclear. |
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Absent any context that indicates spiciness, my default interpretation of "hot" is temperature. But I'm just one person. If you want to avoid all ambiguity, you're pretty much stuck using "warm" or "scalding" or "boiling" or "toasty" or "just out of the oven" or some other synonym of hot. Of those, warm is probably the most all-purpose word, and least likely to be misinterpreted. (The other option is to include an adverb that makes it clear which meaning of hot you intended. For example, piping hot.) |
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Here are a few:
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Right. If you say in English that a food is "hot," that can refer to it's spiciness or its prepared temperature. If you want to be clear about the spiciness, you can say it is "piquant," or "fiery." Otherwise, you can develop a more elaborate description for clarification, e.g., "that was so hot it almost blew my head off!" |
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If peppers are the source of spiciness, peppery is another possibility:
Spicy food is also often said to have a kick. |
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Why not just say it's "spicy"? What else are you trying to convey? |
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A common way of stating high temperature on any day would be:
Spicy food is just "spicy" |
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