distempering

Verb

distemper (third-person singular simple present distempers, present participle distempering, simple past and past participle distempered)

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...
3. To deprive of temper or moderation; to disturb; to ruffle; to make disaffected, ill-humoured, or malignant.
   • I have been long accustomed to defend you,
     To heal and pacify distempered spirits.1799-1800, Samuel Taylor Coleridge (translator), The Piccolomini by Friedrich Schiller, Boston: Francis A. Niccolls & Co., 1902, p. 37
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...1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter X, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC
6. To mix (colours) in the way of distemper.
   • to distemper colors with size

See all 10 meanings of distemper