Crossword Dictionary

What's The Definition Of Distemper?

\Dis*tem"per\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. {Distempered}; p. pr. & vb. n. {Distempering}.] [OF. destemprer, destremper, to distemper, F. d['e]tremper to soak, soften, slake (lime); pref. des- (L. dis-) + OF. temprer, tremper, F. tremper, L. temperare to mingle in due proportion. See {Temper}, and cf. {Destemprer}.] 1. To temper or mix unduly; to make disproportionate; to change the due proportions of. [Obs.] When . . . the humors in his body ben distempered. --Chaucer. 2. To derange the functions of, whether bodily, mental, or spiritual; to disorder; to disease. --Shak. The imagination, when completely distempered, is the most incurable of all disordered faculties. --Buckminster. 3. To deprive of temper or moderation; to disturb; to ruffle; to make disaffected, ill-humored, or malignant. ``Distempered spirits.'' --Coleridge. 4. To intoxicate. [R.] The courtiers reeling, And the duke himself, I dare not say distempered, But kind, and in his tottering chair carousing. --Massinger. 5. (Paint.) To mix (colors) in the way of distemper; as, to distemper colors with size. [R.]
\Dis*tem"per\, n. [See {Distemper}, v. t., and cf. {Destemprer}.] 1. An undue or unnatural temper, or disproportionate mixture of parts. --Bacon. Note: This meaning and most of the following are to be referred to the Galenical doctrine of the four ``humors'' in man. See {Humor}. According to the old physicians, these humors, when unduly tempered, produce a disordered state of body and mind. 2. Severity of climate; extreme weather, whether hot or cold. [Obs.] Those countries . . . under the tropic, were of a distemper uninhabitable. --Sir W. Raleigh. 3. A morbid state of the animal system; indisposition; malady; disorder; -- at present chiefly applied to diseases of brutes; as, a distemper in dogs; the horse distemper; the horn distemper in cattle. They heighten distempers to diseases. --Suckling. 4. Morbid temper of the mind; undue predominance of a passion or appetite; mental derangement; bad temper; ill humor. [Obs.] Little faults proceeding on distemper. --Shak. Some frenzy distemper had got into his head. --Bunyan. 5. Political disorder; tumult. --Waller. 6. (Paint.) (a) A preparation of opaque or body colors, in which the pigments are tempered or diluted with weak glue or size (cf. {Tempera}) instead of oil, usually for scene painting, or for walls and ceilings of rooms. (b) A painting done with this preparation. Syn: Disease; disorder; sickness; illness; malady; indisposition; ailment. See {Disease}.