attemper

Verb

attemper (third-person singular simple present attempers, present participle attempering, simple past and past participle attempered)

1. To temper by adjusting relative quantities, or blending qualities.
2. To mitigate, assuage.
   • But we must add, that she did say, by way of attempering her pleasure: "Well! I must say I never saw a finer young man in my life—indeed I don’t know that the court of Great Britain quite boasts his equal...1842, [anonymous collaborator of Letitia Elizabeth Landon], chapter LVI, in Lady Anne Granard; or, Keeping up Appearances. […], volume III, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, page 86
3. (archaic) To regulate, arrange, organise.
   • Thus fairely she attempered her feast, / And pleasd them all with meete satietie [...].1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto II”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC
   • They tempt no conflict, no revenge provoke,
     But meet oppression in its daring course,
     With wisdom's ample shield, of Heaven attemper'd force.1815, Lydia Sigourney, Moral Pieces in Prose and Verse, On the Convention at Hartford, page 246