distemper

English

Etymology

From Old French destemprer, from Latin distemperare.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /dɪsˈtɛmpə(ɹ)/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛmpə(ɹ)

Noun

distemper (countable and uncountable, plural distempers)

1. (veterinary medicine, pathology) A viral disease of animals, such as dogs and cats, characterised by fever, coughing and catarrh.
2. (archaic) A disorder of the humours of the body; a disease.
   • 1618, Patri[c]k Anderson, The Colde Spring of Kinghorne Craig […], Edinburgh: Thomas Finlason, unnumbered page:

     […] 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.

   • 1624, John Donne, “1. Meditation”, in Deuotions upon Emergent Occasions, and Seuerall Steps in My Sicknes: […], London: […] A[ugustine] M[atthews] for Thomas Iones, →OCLC, page 8:

     O perplex'd diſcompoſition, O ridling diſtemper, O miſerable condition of Man.

   • 1719 May 6 (Gregorian calendar), [Daniel Defoe], The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, […], London: […] W[illiam] Taylor […], →OCLC, page 105:

     [M]y spirits began to sink under the Burden of a strong Distemper, and Nature was exhausted with the Violence of the Fever […]

   • 1768, Mr. Yorick [pseudonym; Laurence Sterne], A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy, volume I, London: […] T. Becket and P. A. De Hondt, […], →OCLC:

     —’Tis true, said I, correcting the proposition,—the Bastile is not an evil to be despised;—but strip it of its towers—fill up the fosse,—unbarricade the doors—call it simply a confinement, and suppose ’tis some tyrant of a distemper—and not of a man, which holds you in it,—the evil vanishes, and you bear the other half without complaint.

3. A glue-based paint.
4. (countable) A painting produced with this kind of paint.

Derived terms

• canine distemper
• canine distemper virus
• feline distemper
• sleepy distemper
• throat distemper

Translations

disease

• Bulgarian: разстройство (bg) n (razstrojstvo), неразположение (bg) n (nerazpoloženie)
• Finnish: penikkatauti (fi) (especially dogs), kissarutto (cats only)
• German: Staupe f
• Hungarian: szopornyica (hu)
• Irish: conslaod m
• Italian: cimurro m
• Latin: morbus (la) m
• Plautdietsch: Hunjskrankheit f
• Polish: nosówka (pl) f
• Russian: чу́мка (ru) (čúmka)
• Swedish: valpsjuka (sv) c

paint

• Bulgarian: темперна боя f (temperna boja)
• Italian: tempera (it) f
• Polish: tempera (pl) f
• Russian: те́мпера (ru) (témpera)
• Swedish: limfärg c

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.
   • 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 Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene ii]:

     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.

   • 1814, Joseph Stevens Buckminster, Sermons‎^[1], Boston: John Eliot, Sermon XVI, p. 267:

     The imagination, when completely distempered, is the most incurable of all disordered faculties.

   • 1888–1891, Herman Melville, “[Billy Budd, Foretopman.] Chapter III.”, in Billy Budd and Other Stories, London: John Lehmann, published 1951, →OCLC:

     To some extent the Nore Mutiny may be regarded as analogous to the distempering irruption of contagious fever in a frame constitutionally sound, and which anon throws it off.

3. To deprive of temper or moderation; to disturb; to ruffle; to make disaffected, ill-humoured, or malignant.
   • 1799-1800, Samuel Taylor Coleridge (translator), The Piccolomini by Friedrich Schiller, Boston: Francis A. Niccolls & Co., 1902, p. 37,^[2]

     I have been long accustomed to defend you,

     To heal and pacify distempered spirits.

4. To intoxicate.
   • 1623, Philip Massinger, The Duke of Milan‎^[3], act I, scene 1:

     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.

5. To paint using distemper.
   • 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter X, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:

     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 for his own.

   • 1933 January 9, George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], chapter XIX, in Down and Out in Paris and London, London: Victor Gollancz […], →OCLC:

     We cleaned out the cellars, fixed the shelves, distempered the walls, polished the woodwork, whitewashed the ceiling, stained the floor;

6. To mix (colours) in the way of distemper.

   to distemper colors with size

Conjugation

Conjugation of distemper

infinitive	(to) distemper
	present tense	past tense
1st-person singular	distemper	distempered
2nd-person singular	distemper, distemperest†	distempered, distemperedst†
3rd-person singular	distempers, distempereth†	distempered
plural	distemper
subjunctive	distemper	distempered
imperative	distemper	—
participles	distempering	distempered

^† Archaic or obsolete.

Derived terms

• distemperer
• distemperment

Anagrams

• imprested