distemper
verbEtymology From Old French destemprer, from Latin distemperare.
1
To temper or mix unduly; to make disproportionate; to change the due proportions of.
2
To derange the functions of, whether bodily, mental, or spiritual; to disorder; to disease.
- Guildenstern. The King, sir— Hamlet. Ay, sir, what of him? Guildenstern. Is in his retirement, marvellous distemper’d. Hamlet. With drink, sir? Guildenstern. No, my lord; rather with choler.c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene ii]:
- The imagination, when completely distempered, is the most incurable of all disordered faculties.1814, Joseph Stevens Buckminster, Sermons, Boston: John Eliot, Sermon XVI, p. 267:
1 more example
- To some extent the Nore Mutiny may be regarded as analogous to the distempering irruption of contagious fever in a frame constitutionally sound, and which anon throws it off.1888–1891, Herman Melville, “[Billy Budd, Foretopman.] Chapter III.”, in Billy Budd and Other Stories, London: John Lehmann, published 1951, →OCLC:
3
To deprive of temper or moderation; to disturb; to ruffle; to make disaffected, ill-humoured, or malignant.
- 1799-1800, Samuel Taylor Coleridge (translator), The Piccolomini by Friedrich Schiller, Boston: Francis A. Niccolls & Co., 1902, p. 37, I have been long accustomed to defend you, To heal and pacify distempered spirits.
4
To intoxicate.
- For the Courtiers reeling, And the Duke himselfe, (I dare not say distemperd, But kind, and in his tottering chaire carousing) They doe the countrie service.1623, Philip Massinger, The Duke of Milan, act I, scene 1:
5
To paint using distemper.
- He looked round the poor room, at the distempered walls, and the bad engravings in meretricious frames, the crinkly paper and wax flowers on the chiffonier; and he thought of a room like Father Bryan's, with panelling, with cut glass, with tulips in silver pots, such a room as he had hoped to have for his own.1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter X, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:
- We cleaned out the cellars, fixed the shelves, distempered the walls, polished the woodwork, whitewashed the ceiling, stained the floor;1933 January 9, George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], chapter XIX, in Down and Out in Paris and London, London: Victor Gollancz […], →OCLC:
6
To mix (colours) in the way of distemper.
- to distemper colors with size
- Derived terms
- distemperer, distemperment