What word other than hot can I use to distinguish hot as in temperature from 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.
Best Answer
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!"