balmy
Americanadjective
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(of weather) mild and pleasant
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having the qualities of balm; fragrant or soothing
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a variant spelling of barmy
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Adjectives
Etymology
Origin of balmy
Explanation
Tourists who flock from Minnesota to Florida in the wintertime are hoping for balmy weather — that is, those frosty Midwesterners are trading mountains of snow and freezing winds for warm sun and gentle breezes. ChapStick and nice weather might not seem to have much in common, but consider this: Both are soothing and restorative. The adjective balmy is, indeed, related to the noun balm (as in "lip balm") and both share a wonderfully rich etymology: Balm made its way from Hebrew to English via Greek, Latin, and Old French. Just as the noun is used in the names of aromatic unguents and plants with healing properties, the adjective balmy is used to describe weather so pleasant that it's positively therapeutic.
Vocabulary lists containing balmy
The Sweltering Words of Summer
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Othello
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"The Bells" by Edgar Allan Poe
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Flags can appear in the spirit of those balmy emotions – cue the World Cup.
From BBC ● Jun. 5, 2026
That’s because the global maps most of us are used to are as deceptive as icy Greenland’s euphemistically balmy name.
From Slate ● Jan. 21, 2026
This January, temperatures in Nuuk hovered at an unseasonably balmy 50 degrees Fahrenheit on some days, WSJ’s Max Colchester and Daniel Michaels write in this dispatch from Greenland’s icebound capital.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 15, 2026
Its trapped-ion architecture operates at room temperature, a meaningful advantage when competitors require cooling systems that make Antarctica look balmy.
From MarketWatch ● Dec. 23, 2025
The day had been warm, almost balmy, but the evening was cooler and already thickening into a starless, chilly night.
From "A Thousand Splendid Suns" by Khaled Hosseini
Unfortunately, the same draws that make it a walkable gawk for touristas of every stripe makes it a frustrating exercise in perambulation for locals — kind of like New York’s Times Square with balmier weather.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 8, 2024
And that was balmier than had been predicted.
From Washington Post ● Jan. 2, 2022
Weather patterns can change because the colder poles warm faster than balmier lower latitudes.
From Economist ● Jul. 28, 2018
This winter’s extreme warmth was, in part, driven by an unusual number of storms in the Atlantic that brought balmier air to the Arctic.
From The Guardian ● Apr. 21, 2018
The air is decidedly balmier, but that's not all; there's a kind of buzzing energy.
From "What the Night Sings" by Vesper Stamper
Residents in Warsaw enjoyed the balmiest start to the year since 1999, with a high of 66 degrees Fahrenheit.
From New York Times ● Jan. 4, 2023
In London, where the lifting of restrictions coincided with the balmiest weather of the summer, sunbathers near Liverpool Station voiced a mixture of relief and anxiety as the country ventured into uncharted territory.
From New York Times ● Jul. 19, 2021
Their last studio album, 2011′s Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will, piped up with some of the balmiest major key tunes Mogwai’s crafted to date.
From Time ● Jan. 24, 2014
Florida, ending one of its balmiest winters in history, last week greeted the spread of spring across the North with remarkable equanimity.
From Time Magazine Archive
There seemed no necessity for his having drawn breath at all; the world never wanted him; but, as he had breathed, it ought always to have been the balmiest of summer air.
From House of the Seven Gables by Hawthorne, Nathaniel
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
