tempering

tempering is the present participle and gerund of temper.

Noun

tempering (plural temperings)

The act by which something is tempered.
- Caron has, in fact, discovered this very curious circumstance, that a bar of steel becomes shorter under successive temperings, while it increases in size, laterally, in such a manner, that there actually is an increase of volume.1872, Louis Emmanuel Gruner, The Manufacture of Steel, page 29
(pottery) A non-plastic material, such as sand, added to clay to prevent shrinkage and cracking during drying or firing; temper.
- Clay and tempering were packed around the pole together with plenty of water[.]1983, Barry Cunliffe, chapter 6, in Danebury Hillfort, Stroud: Tempus

temper (third-person singular simple present tempers, present participle tempering, simple past and past participle tempered)

To moderate or control.
- Temper your language around children.
Synonyms:

season
To strengthen or toughen a material, especially metal, by heat treatment; anneal.
- Tempering is a heat treatment technique applied to metals, alloys, and glass to achieve greater toughness by increasing the strength of materials and/or ductility. Tempering is performed by a controlled reheating of the work piece to a temperature below its lower eutectic critical temperature.
To adjust the temperature of an ingredient (e.g. eggs or chocolate) gradually so that it remains smooth and pleasing.
To sauté spices in ghee or oil to release essential oils for flavouring a dish in South Asian cuisine.
To mix clay, plaster or mortar with water to obtain the proper consistency.
To adjust, as the mathematical scale to the actual scale, or to that in actual use.

plural	temperings

What does tempering mean?: Tempering means the act by which something is tempered.
What is tempering the present participle and gerund of?: Tempering is the present participle and gerund of temper.
What part of speech is tempering?: Tempering is a noun.
What is the plural of tempering?: The plural of tempering is temperings.

Adapted from Wiktionary: tempering (page history and authors); temper (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: 2026-09-02

Cite this entry: “tempering.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/tempering. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.