destemper
destemper is the obsolete form of distemper.
Meaning of distemper
Noun
distemper (countable and uncountable, plural distempers)
- A viral disease of animals, such as dogs and cats, characterised by fever, coughing and catarrh.
- A disorder of the humours of the body; a disease.
- […] and is the onlie laſt remedie for all debilities which haue long vexed the body through a hote diſtemper of the Lever, ſuch as a hote Gutte; it allayeth all Inflamations inward & outward.1618, Patri[c]k Anderson, The Colde Spring of Kinghorne Craig […], Edinburgh: Thomas Finlason, unnumbered page
- A glue-based paint.
- A painting produced with this kind of paint.
Forms of destemper
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | destempers |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | destempers |
| present participle | destempering |
| past participle | destempered |
| past | destempered |
Origin of destemper
Compare French détrempe, from détremper.
Questions about destemper
- What is destemper the obsolete form of?
- Destemper is the obsolete form of distemper.
Words near destemper in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: destemper (page history and authors); distemper (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Cite this entry: “destemper.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/destemper. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.