temper.
A general tendency or orientation towards a certain type of mood, a volatile state; a habitual way of thinking, behaving or reacting.
Meaning & usage
A general tendency or orientation towards a certain type of mood, a volatile state; a habitual way of thinking, behaving or reacting.
to have a good, bad, or calm temper
State of mind; mood.
A tendency to become angry.
Mind your hasty temper!
He has quite a temper when dealing with salespeople.
Anger; a fit of anger.
an outburst of temper
When I heard about it I got myself into a terrible temper.
Calmness of mind; moderation; equanimity; composure.
Constitution of body; the mixture or relative proportion of the four humours: blood, choler, phlegm, and melancholy.
Middle state or course; mean; medium.
The state of any compound substance which results from the mixture of various ingredients; due mixture of different qualities.
the temper of mortar
The heat treatment to which a metal or other material has been subjected; a material that has undergone a particular heat treatment.
The state of a metal or other substance, especially as to its hardness, produced by some process of heating or cooling.
the temper of iron or steel
Milk of lime, or other substance, employed in the process formerly used to clarify sugar.
A non-plastic material, such as sand, added to clay to prevent shrinkage and cracking during drying or firing; tempering.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English temperen, tempren, from Old English ġetemprian, temprian, borrowed from Latin temperō (“(transitive) to divide or proportion duly, to moderate, to regulate; (intransitive) to be moderate, temperate”), from tempus (“time, fit season”). Compare also French tempérer. Doublet of tamper. See temporal.
To moderate or control.
Temper your language around children.
To strengthen or toughen a material, especially metal, by heat treatment; anneal.
Tempering is a heat treatment technique applied to metals, alloys, and glass to achieve greater toughness by increasing the strength of materials and/or ductility. Tempering is performed by a controlled reheating of the work piece to a temperature below its lower eutectic critical temperature.
To adjust the temperature of an ingredient (e.g. eggs or chocolate) gradually so that it remains smooth and pleasing.
To sauté spices in ghee or oil to release essential oils for flavouring a dish in South Asian cuisine.
To mix clay, plaster or mortar with water to obtain the proper consistency.
To adjust, as the mathematical scale to the actual scale, or to that in actual use.
To govern; to manage.
To combine in due proportions; to constitute; to compose.
To mingle in due proportion; to prepare by combining; to modify, as by adding some new element; to qualify, as by an ingredient; hence, to soften; to mollify; to assuage.
Puritan austerity was so tempered by Dutch indifference, that mercy itself could not have dictated a milder system.
To fit together; to adjust; to accommodate.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English temperen, tempren, from Old English ġetemprian, temprian, borrowed from Latin temperō (“(transitive) to divide or proportion duly, to moderate, to regulate; (intransitive) to be moderate, temperate”), from tempus (“time, fit season”). Compare also French tempérer. Doublet of tamper. See temporal.
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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.