Etymology

Noun

1. The state or condition of being tempered or moderated.
2. The balance of humours in the body, or one's character or outlook as considered determined from this; temperament.
   • 1621, Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy, Book I, New York 2001, p. 136:

     Our intemperence it is that pulls so many several incurable diseases on our heads, that hastens old age, perverts our temperature, and brings upon us sudden death.

   • 1759, Laurence Sterne, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, Penguin 2003, p.5:

     [...] that not only the production of a rational Being was concern'd in it, but that possibly the happy foundation and temperature of his body, perhaps his genius and the very cast of his mind [...].

3. A measure of cold or heat, often measurable with a thermometer.

   The boiling temperature of pure water is 100 degrees Celsius.

4. An elevated body temperature, as present in fever and many illnesses.

   You have a temperature; I think you should stay home today. You’re sick.

5. The temperature(1) of the immediate environment.

   The temperature dropped nearly 20 degrees; it went from hot to cold.

6. A property of macroscopic amounts of matter that serves to gauge the average intensity of the random actual motions of the individually mobile particulate constituents. http://arxiv.org/pdf/physics/0004055

See also

• Customary: degrees Fahrenheit (°F), degrees Rankine (°R, measures absolute temperature)
• Metric: degrees Celsius/centigrade (°C), kelvins (K, measures absolute temperature)
• Wikisaurus:temperature

Related terms

• hot
• warm
• lukewarm
• cool
• cold
• fresh
• fever