temperature

Borrowed from Latin temperatura[1] (cf. also French température), from the past participle stem of tempero (“I temper”).

• IPA^(key): /ˈtɛmp(ə)ɹətʃə(ɹ)/, /ˈtɛmp(ə)ɹəˌtʃʊə(ɹ)/, /ˈtɛmpə(ɹ)tʃə(ɹ)/, /ˈtɛmpə(ɹ)ˌtʃʊə(ɹ)/

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temperature (countable and uncountable, plural temperatures)

1. (obsolete) The state or condition of being tempered or moderated.
2. (now rare, archaic) The balance of humours in the body, or one's character or outlook as considered determined from this; temperament.
   • 1621, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy, Oxford: Printed by Iohn Lichfield and Iames Short, for Henry Cripps, OCLC 216894069; The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd corrected and augmented edition, Oxford: Printed by John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, 1624, OCLC 54573970:

     , Bk.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 […].

   • 1993, James Michie, trans. Ovid, The Art of Love, Book II:

     Only a strong dose of love will cure / A woman with an angry temperature.

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

   The boiling temperature of pure water is 100 degrees Celsius.

   • 2013 May 11, “The climate of Tibet: Pole-land”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8835, page 80:

     Of all the transitions brought about on the Earth’s surface by temperature change, the melting of ice into water is the starkest. It is binary. And for the land beneath, the air above and the life around, it changes everything.

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. (when not used in relation with something) The temperature(1) of the immediate environment.

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

6. (thermodynamics) 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.

• 2007, James Shipman, Jerry Wilson, Aaron Todd, An Introduction to Physical Science: Twelfth Edition, pages 106–108:

  Heat and temperature, although different, are intimately related. [...] For example, suppose you added equal amounts of heat to equal masses of iron and aluminum. How do you think their temperatures would change? [...] if the temperature of the iron increased by 100 C°, the corresponding temperature change in the aluminum would be only 48 C°.

• land skin temperature

• temperature inversion

• Customary: degrees Fahrenheit (°F), degrees Rankine (°R, measures absolute temperature)
• Metric: degrees Celsius/centigrade (°C), kelvins (K, measures absolute temperature)
• Thesaurus:temperature
• cool
• cold
• fresh
• fever
• hot
• lukewarm
• warm

• temperature on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

• Rhymes: -ure

temperature f pl

1. plural of temperatura

temperātūre

1. vocative masculine singular of temperātūrus

Borrowed from Latin temperatura.

temperature f (plural temperatures)

1. disposition; habitual state; temperament