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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

distemper.

A viral disease of animals, such as dogs and cats, characterised by fever, coughing and catarrh.

9 characters3 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/dɪsˈtɛmpə(ɹ)/UK
  1. A viral disease of animals, such as dogs and cats, characterised by fever, coughing and catarrh.

    countable · uncountable
  2. A disorder of the humours of the body; a disease.

    archaic · countable · uncountable
  3. A glue-based paint.

    countable · uncountable
  4. A painting produced with this kind of paint.

    countable
Where this word comes from

From Old French destemprer, from Latin distemperare.

verb/dɪsˈtɛmpə(ɹ)/UK
  1. To temper or mix unduly; to make disproportionate; to change the due proportions of.

  2. To derange the functions of, whether bodily, mental, or spiritual; to disorder; to disease.

  3. To deprive of temper or moderation; to disturb; to ruffle; to make disaffected, ill-humoured, or malignant.

  4. To intoxicate.

  5. To paint using distemper.

  6. To mix (colours) in the way of distemper.

    to distemper colors with size
Where this word comes from

From Old French destemprer, from Latin distemperare.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.