temper
Pluraltempers
Verbtempers, tempering, tempered
Pluraltempers
Formstempers, tempering, tempered
- 1A tendency to become angry.
The chef's temper was famous, and new cooks learned to stay out of his way.
Behind the wheel, my usually gentle father shows a real temper.
Note
No adjective is needed here: a temper, quite a temper or what a temper all mean a quick one, as in "What a temper you've got, Wormold" in Graham Greene's Our Man in Havana (1958). Smaller doses can be measured out too; in Anne of Avonlea (1909), Mr. Harrison suspects Anne has "a spice of temper".
- 2Calm composure and moderation of mind.
The negotiator never lost her temper, no matter how hard the other side pushed.
It took him a full minute of deep breaths to recover his temper.
Similarcomposure, cool, calm, equanimity
Note
Here temper is the calm that people keep, lose and recover, so losing your temper means losing composure, not finding a new emotion. That makes the word double-edged: she has a temper and she kept her temper point opposite ways. Older writers used the calm sense on its own, as when Pope asks to "fall with Dignity, with Temper rise".
- 3Anger, or a fit of anger.
She stormed out in a temper and slammed the door behind her.
Flashes of temper broke through his usual politeness during the meeting.
Similarrage, fury, anger, huff, tantrum
Note
The fit has its own verbs: people fly into a temper, get into one and storm out in one. As uncountable anger it comes in outbursts and flashes. C. S. Lewis, in The Silver Chair (1953), notes drily that Jill flew into a temper, which is quite likely to happen if you have been interrupted in a cry.
- 4To moderate something or keep it under control.
The coach tempered his praise, reminding the team that the season was far from over.
Investors should temper their expectations until the new product actually ships.
Similarmoderate, soften, curb, restrain, mitigate
Oppositeintensify
Note
What gets tempered is something that could run too strong: language, enthusiasm, praise, expectations. The verb turns it down without switching it off, so a press that tempers its enthusiasm for a report still approves of it, only less loudly.
- 5A state of mind or mood.
The long delay left the passengers in an irritable temper.
After a good night's sleep, she woke in a cheerful temper.
Note
Where the habitual sense describes a person, this one describes a moment, and it can shift within a scene: Mary Shelley writes of a temper that "was fluctuating", joy giving way to distraction. Older prose builds it with of, as in Defoe's "Temper of Peace, Thankfulness, Love and Affection"; today it more often follows in, as in a cheerful temper.
- 6A general leaning toward a certain kind of mood, or a habitual way of thinking, behaving, or reacting.
The gentleness of her temper won over even the grumpiest neighbors.
Twins can have very different tempers, one bold and the other shy.
Similartemperament, disposition, nature, character
Note
The word began with mixing: Latin temperō meant to proportion duly, from tempus, "fit season", and a temper was the blend that made a person who they were. In this neutral sense it usually takes an adjective, a good, calm or sweet temper, as when Fielding's Tom Jones (1749) speaks of the sweetness of a woman's temper. Tamper, oddly, is a doublet of the same word.
- 7To toughen a material, especially metal or glass, by controlled heating and cooling, often reducing its brittleness.
Knife makers temper each blade at a carefully chosen heat after hardening it.
The factory tempers the glass for car windows so that it breaks into small, blunt pieces.
Similartoughen, strengthen
Note
Smiths reheat the metal under control, usually after hardening it, to gain toughness so the piece is less likely to crack in use; alloys and glass are tempered too, each by its own process. Behind it lies Latin temperō, to bring to due measure, the idea also at work in tempering one's words. The trade word is an old one: Dryden's translation of the Aeneid (1697) has "temper'd metals" that clash with a silver sound.
- 8To change the temperature of an ingredient, such as eggs or chocolate, gradually so that it stays smooth and pleasing.
Whisk a ladle of hot soup into the yolks to temper them before adding them to the pot.
The pastry chef tempered the chocolate on a marble slab before dipping the strawberries.
Note
Two different kitchen jobs share the word. With eggs, hot liquid goes in a little at a time so the yolks warm without scrambling; with chocolate, the cook melts, cools and gently rewarms it so the cocoa butter sets glossy and firm. Both are about controlling heat, the idea that also runs through tempering steel.
- 9The hardness or other condition of a metal or similar substance produced by heating or cooling, or the heat treatment that gives it.
Overheating the blade on the grinder can ruin its temper.
The two springs looked identical but had very different tempers.
Similarhardness
Note
Both the result and the process go by this name: a steel's temper is the hardness it has been given, and also the heat treatment that gave it. In Shakespeare's Henry VI, Part 1, a speaker who admits no skill in the law still claims to know "between two blades, which bears the better temper". The verb behind it is toughening by heat.
- 10To mix clay, plaster, or mortar with water until it has the proper consistency.
Masons temper their mortar on site, adding water until it holds its shape on the trowel.
Before throwing, she tempered the clay with water until it was soft enough to work.
Similarmix
- 11In South Asian cooking, to sauté spices in ghee or oil so that they release their essential oils and flavor a dish.
Just before serving, temper cumin seeds and dried chilies in ghee and pour them over the lentils.
The cook tempered curry leaves and mustard seeds until the kitchen filled with their scent.
- 12To blend things in due proportion; to modify or qualify something by adding another element; hence, to soften, soothe, or ease it.
The painter tempered his pigments with egg yolk before laying on the color.
But thy fire / Shall be more tempered, and thy hope far higher.
1812, Lord Byron, Childe Harold’s PilgrimageNote
Mixing and softening sit at the two ends of this sense. Addison's clouds in The Tatler (1709) temper light "into a thousand beautiful shades and colours", changing it by what they add; in Otway's Venice Preserv'd (1682), woman was made "to temper man", to gentle him. The softening end shades into moderating something.
- 13In music, to adjust the pitches of a scale, bringing the mathematically pure scale into line with the one actually in use.
Keyboard tuners temper the fifths slightly narrow so that every key sounds acceptable.
An equally tempered scale divides the octave into identical semitones.
Note
Pure intervals do not fit together: a stack of pure fifths never lands exactly on an octave, so something has to give. Tempering shares out that small error, and equal temperament, the usual tuning for pianos, spreads it evenly, so that every key sounds equally in tune, and equally a little out.
- 14A middle state or course between two extremes; a mean.
The perfect lawgiver is a just temper between the mere man of theory, who can see nothing but general principles, and the mere man of business, who can see nothing but particular circumstances.
1849, Thomas Babington Macaulay, The History of England from the Accession of James the Second - 15The state of a compound substance that results from how its ingredients are mixed; a due blending of different qualities.
The mason tested the temper of the mortar before laying the next course of bricks.
Too much water spoiled the temper of the plaster, and it cracked as it dried.
Similarconsistency
Note
In building and pottery the word can name two different things, so context matters: the temper of mortar or clay is how well the mix has come together, while the potter's temper is the sand or grit added to it. One is a quality of the whole; the other is an ingredient.
- 16A non-plastic material, such as sand, mixed into clay to keep it from shrinking and cracking as it dries or is fired.
Crushed shell served as temper in much of the region's prehistoric pottery.
Adding too little temper left the bricks prone to cracking in the kiln.
Note
For archaeologists the choice of temper is a signature. Crushed shell, grit, sand, ground-up old pottery and plant fiber each mark a particular time, place or potting tradition, so a single broken sherd can hint at who made the pot and where. The material is also called tempering.
- 17To combine in due proportions, and so to make up or compose something.
Note
In The Tempest, Ariel mocks swords "temper'd" of the elements, which could no more harm him than wound the winds: the verb names what a thing is made up of. The blending sense is about the act of mixing; this one is about what the mixing composes.
- 18Milk of lime or another substance used in the former process of clarifying sugar.
The sugar boiler stirred a measure of temper into the hot cane juice.
Each copper had to be dosed with just the right amount of temper.
Note
Cane juice begins to ferment almost as soon as it is pressed, so the sugar works dosed it at once with temper, usually milk of lime, which is slaked lime stirred into water. The temper checked the juice's acid and gathered impurities into a scum that the boilers skimmed away. The word went out of use with the old process.
- 19Bodily constitution, understood in old medicine as the balance of the four humors.
Note
Old medicine pictured the body as a mixture of four humors, and its temper was the particular balance of that mix. Thomas Fuller, in A Pisgah-Sight of Palestine (1650), argues that the exquisiteness of Christ's bodily temper sharpened his torment. The sense is obsolete; today the body's makeup is its constitution.
- 20To govern or manage.
With which the damned ghosts he governeth, / And furies rules, and Tartare tempereth.
1591, “Prosopopoia. Or Mother Hubberds Tale.”, in Complaints. Containing Sundrie Small Poemes of the Worlds Vanitie.Note
English borrowed this use straight from Latin, where the verb could mean "I regulate". Spenser lines it up with two plainer verbs of command: "the damned ghosts he governeth, / And furies rules, and Tartare tempereth". Today the nearest living sense is keeping something under control.
- 21To fit things together, or to adjust or accommodate one thing to another.
A wise teacher tempers each lesson to the pupils in front of her.
Old joiners would temper each board to its neighbor until the seams all but vanished.
Note
Nothing is softened in this sense, only fitted. The King James Bible of 1611 speaks of a sustenance that "tempered itself to every man's liking", suiting each eater's taste rather than being toned down. That is the line between this obsolete use and moderating something: one adjusts a thing to its user, the other turns it down.
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Origin
From Middle English temperen, from Old English ġetemprian, temprian, borrowed from Latin temperō ("to divide or proportion duly, moderate, regulate"), from tempus ("time, fit season"). Compare French tempérer; a doublet of tamper.