TEMPERATURE

temperature

(noun) the degree of hotness or coldness of a body or environment (corresponding to its molecular activity)

temperature

(noun) the somatic sensation of cold or heat

Source: WordNet® 3.1


Etymology

Noun

temperature (countable and uncountable, plural temperatures)

A measure of cold or heat, often measurable with a thermometer.

An elevated body temperature, as present in fever and many illnesses.

(thermodynamics) A property of macroscopic amounts of matter that serves to gauge the average intensity of the random actual motions of the individually mobile particulate constituents.

(obsolete) The state or condition of being tempered or moderated.

(now rare, archaic) The balance of humours in the body, or one's character or outlook as considered determined from this; temperament.

Hyponyms

• apparent temperature

• color temperature

• planetary equilibrium temperature

• Hagedorn temperature

• Planck temperature

Source: Wiktionary


Tem"per*a*ture, n. Etym: [F. température, L. temperatura due measure, proportion, temper, temperament.]

1. Constitution; state; degree of any quality. The best composition and temperature is, to have openness in fame and opinion, secrecy in habit, dissimulation in seasonable use, and a power to feign, if there be no remedy. Bacon. Memory depends upon the consistence and the temperature of the brain. I. Watts.

2. Freedom from passion; moderation. [Obs.] In that proud port, which her so goodly graceth, Most goodly temperature you may descry. Spenser.

3. (Physics)

Definition: Condition with respect to heat or cold, especially as indicated by the sensation produced, or by the thermometer or pyrometer; degree of heat or cold; as, the temperature of the air; high temperature; low temperature; temperature of freezing or of boiling.

4. Mixture; compound. [Obs.] Made a temperature of brass and iron together. Holland. Absolute temperature. (Physics) See under Absolute.

– Animal temperature (Physiol.), the nearly constant temperature maintained in the bodies of warm-blooded (homoiothermal) animals during life. The ultimate source of the heat is to be found in the potential energy of the food and the oxygen which is absorbed from the air during respiration. See Homoiothermal.

– Temperature sense (Physiol.), the faculty of perceiving cold and warmth, and so of perceiving differences of temperature in external objects. H. N. Martin.

Source: Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary 1913 Edition



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Word of the Day

4 April 2025

GUILLOTINE

(verb) kill by cutting the head off with a guillotine; “The French guillotined many Vietnamese while they occupied the country”


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Coffee Trivia

Some 16th-century Italian clergymen tried to ban coffee because they believed it to be “satanic.” However, Pope Clement VII loved coffee so much that he lifted the ban and had coffee baptized in 1600.

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