temperate
Language: English
Part of speech: adj
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈtɛmpəɹət/
Forms: form: more temperate
form: most temperate
Etymology: The adjective is first attested in 1380, in Middle English, the verb in 1540; borrowed from Latin temperātus, perfect passive participle of temperō (“to moderate, forbear, combine properly”), see -ate (adjective-forming suffix) and -ate (verb-forming suffix). See temper. Displaced native Old English ġemetegod.
Senses: examples: text: temperate heat
text: He has a temperate demeanour
translation: He is a calm person.
english: He is a calm person.
text: She is not hot, but temperate as the morn.
ref: c. 1590–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Taming of the Shrew”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene i]:
text: That sober freedom out of which there springs Our loyal passion for our temperate kings.
ref: 1855, Alfred Tennyson, “(please specify the page)”, in Maud, and Other Poems, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC:
text: "Even in his most temperate moments he is constantly felling people with a hunting-crop."
ref: 1936, Norman Lindsay, The Flyaway Highway, Sydney: Angus and Robertson, page 19:
synonyms: word: measured
word: mellow
word: middle of the road
word: mild
word: moderate
word: nonexcessive
word: nonextreme
word: nonfanatic
word: proper
word: reasonable
word: reasonous
word: sober
word: temperate
word: tempered
word: unexcessive
word: unextreme
glosses: Moderate; not excessive.
examples: text: These trees can only grow in temperate climates.
text: Hepaticology, outside the temperate parts of the Northern Hemisphere, still lies deep in the shadow cast by that ultimate "closet taxonomist," Franz Stephani—a ghost whose shadow falls over us all.
ref: 1992, Rudolf M[athias] Schuster, The Hepaticae and Anthocerotae of North America: East of the Hundredth Meridian, volume V, Chicago, Ill.: Field Museum of Natural History, →ISBN, page vii:
synonyms: word: measured
word: mellow
word: middle of the road
word: mild
word: moderate
word: nonexcessive
word: nonextreme
word: nonfanatic
word: proper
word: reasonable
word: reasonous
word: sober
word: temperate
word: tempered
word: unexcessive
word: unextreme
word: mellow
word: mild
glosses: Moderate; not excessive.
Specifically, moderate in temperature.
examples: text: temperate in eating and drinking.
text: August 9, 1768, Benjamin Franklin, To John Alleyne, Esq. On Early Marriages
Be sober and temperate, and you will be healthy.
text: I am a temperate man and have made it a rule not to drink before luncheon. But I was so much ashamed of my first feeling about Gorman that I thought it well to break my rule. […] I gave my vote for whisky and soda as the more thorough-going drink of the two. A cocktail is seldom more than a mouthful.
ref: 1915, G[eorge] A. Birmingham [pseudonym; James Owen Hannay], chapter I, in Gossamer, New York, N.Y.: George H. Doran Company, →OCLC, pages 14–15:
synonyms: word: measured
word: mellow
word: middle of the road
word: mild
word: moderate
word: nonexcessive
word: nonextreme
word: nonfanatic
word: proper
word: reasonable
word: reasonous
word: sober
word: temperate
word: tempered
word: unexcessive
word: unextreme
word: abstentious
word: continent
word: abstemious
word: abstentious
word: abstinent
word: sober
word: spareful
word: temperate
glosses: Moderate; not excessive.
Moderate in the indulgence of the natural appetites or passions
examples: text: The temperate sleeps, and spirits light as air.
ref: 1733–1737, Alexander Pope, [Imitations of Horace], London: […] R[obert] Dodsley [et al.]:
glosses: Proceeding from temperance.
examples: text: temperate fishes
glosses: Dependent on life in a temperate climate.
Synonyms: word: abstemious
word: calm
word: collected
word: composed
word: continent
word: cool
word: dispassionate
word: inexcitable
word: imperturbable
word: regular
word: sedate
word: sober
word: steady
word: staid
word: temperate
word: undisturbed
word: unexcitable
word: unexcited
word: unimpassioned
word: unpassionate
word: unperturbed
word: unruffled
word: unstirred
word: unsusceptible
Hypernyms: word: moderate
Hyponyms: word: self-abnegatory
word: virginal
Derived terms: topics: geology
geography
natural-sciences
word: temperate zone
word: that part of the earth which lies between either tropic and the corresponding polar circle
word: -- so called because the heat is less than in the torrid zone
word: and the cold less than in the frigid zone
word: temperate rainforest
Related terms: word: temper
word: temperature
word: orderly
word: organized
word: patient
word: professional
word: restrained
word: serious
word: stoic
word: stoical