• temperate •
Printable Version Pronunciation: tem-pêr-êt • Hear it!
Part of Speech: Adjective
Meaning: 1. Mild, moderate, not extreme in any sense, as a temperate climate or a temperate demeanor. 2. Exercising restraint, as temperate in one's eating.
Notes: Today's Good Word is an adjective based on the noun temper, itself referring to an extreme lack of restraint. So how did that happen? The original meaning of temper, which it still remains, is "the state of the emotions", so people may be of a mild, sociable or irritable temper. The verb temper is also has a neutral sense, so that to temper clay with water means to soften it while tempering steel hardens it. The noun is, of course, temperance.
In Play: Temperance and moderation in all (The Golden Mean), our Greek cultural ancestors taught: "If Jack Potts was as temperate in his gambling habits as he is in his work habits, he could live a more happily balanced life." I tend to be more temperate in temperate weather but my temper tends to rise with the temperature.
Word History: Temperate comes to us from Latin temperatus, the past participle of temperare "to temper, to moderate". This verb is apparently derived from variant of tempus (tempor- with suffixes) "time, season", though the semantic trail is not at all a clear one. There might be a connection between *temp- and *ten- "stretch", which gave us our thin and Russian tyanut' "to extend". To change the [n] to [m], however, would require a suffix [p], and there is no evidence that PIE contained such a suffix.
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