Temper meaning
Soldiers who had been tempered by combat.
An even temper.
Lose one's temper.
Heroes who exemplified the medieval temper; the politicized temper of the 1930s.
To temper criticism with reason.
- (archaic) A properly proportioned mixture.
- The state of a metal with regard to the degree of hardness and resilience.
In a bad temper.
To have a temper.
To go into a temper.
The temper of the times, the modern temper.
To have a good, bad, calm, or hasty temper.
He has quite a (bad) temper when dealing with salespeople.
The temper of mortar.
To keep one's temper.
The temper of iron or steel.
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.
An example of temper is to add white paint to a dark purple paint to make it a lighter color.
An example of temper is what someone loses when they gets excessively mad at even the simplest of problems.
Temper clay; paints that had been tempered with oil.
Origin of temper
- Middle English temperen from Old English temprian from Latin temperāre probably from variant of tempus tempor- time, season
From American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition
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From Wiktionary