distemper
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: ipa: /dɪsˈtɛmpə(ɹ)/
rhymes: -ɛmpə(ɹ)
Forms: form: distempers
form: distempering
form: distempered
form: distempered
form: no-table-tags
form: glossary
form: distemper
form: distemper
form: distempered
form: distemper
form: distemperest
form: distempered
form: distemperedst
form: distempers
form: distempereth
form: distempered
form: distemper
form: distempered
form: distemper
form: distempered
form: distemper
form: -
form: distempering
form: distempered
Etymology: From Old French destemprer, from Latin distemperare.
Senses: glosses: To temper or mix unduly; to make disproportionate; to change the due proportions of.
examples: text: Guildenstern. The King, sir—
Hamlet. Ay, sir, what of him?
Guildenstern. Is in his retirement, marvellous distemper’d.
Hamlet. With drink, sir?
Guildenstern. No, my lord; rather with choler.
ref: c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene ii]:
text: The imagination, when completely distempered, is the most incurable of all disordered faculties.
ref: 1814, Joseph Stevens Buckminster, Sermons, Boston: John Eliot, Sermon XVI, p. 267:
text: To some extent the Nore Mutiny may be regarded as analogous to the distempering irruption of contagious fever in a frame constitutionally sound, and which anon throws it off.
ref: 1888–1891, Herman Melville, “[Billy Budd, Foretopman.] Chapter III.”, in Billy Budd and Other Stories, London: John Lehmann, published 1951, →OCLC:
glosses: To derange the functions of, whether bodily, mental, or spiritual; to disorder; to disease.
examples: 1799-1800, Samuel Taylor Coleridge (translator), The Piccolomini by Friedrich Schiller, Boston: Francis A. Niccolls & Co., 1902, p. 37,
I have been long accustomed to defend you,
To heal and pacify distempered spirits.
glosses: To deprive of temper or moderation; to disturb; to ruffle; to make disaffected, ill-humoured, or malignant.
examples: text: For the Courtiers reeling,
And the Duke himselfe, (I dare not say distemperd,
But kind, and in his tottering chaire carousing)
They doe the countrie service.
ref: 1623, Philip Massinger, The Duke of Milan, act I, scene 1:
glosses: To intoxicate.
examples: text: He looked round the poor room, at the distempered walls, and the bad engravings in meretricious frames, the crinkly paper and wax flowers on the chiffonier; and he thought of a room like Father Bryan's, with panelling, with cut glass, with tulips in silver pots, such a room as he had hoped to have for his own.
ref: 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter X, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:
text: We cleaned out the cellars, fixed the shelves, distempered the walls, polished the woodwork, whitewashed the ceiling, stained the floor;
ref: 1933 January 9, George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], chapter XIX, in Down and Out in Paris and London, London: Victor Gollancz […], →OCLC:
glosses: To paint using distemper.
examples: text: to distemper colors with size
glosses: To mix (colours) in the way of distemper.
Derived terms: distemperer
distemperment