temperature

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin temperātūra (cf. also French température), from the past participle stem of tempero (“I temper”).

noun

1. A measure of cold or heat, often measurable with a thermometer.
   The boiling temperature of pure water is 100 degrees Celsius.
   The temperature in the room dropped nearly 20 degrees; it went from hot to cold.
   The most accurate way to take your temperature is by sticking a thermometer up your butt.
   Of all the transitions brought about on the Earth’s surface by temperature change, the melting of ice into water is the starkest. It is binary. And for the land beneath, the air above and the life around, it changes everything. 2013-05-11, “The climate of Tibet: Pole-land”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8835, page 80
2. An elevated body temperature, as present in fever and many illnesses.
   You have a temperature. I think you should stay home today. You’re sick.
   "Aren't you feeling so well this morning?" she asked him anxiously. "Do you think you've got a temperature?" 1951, Josephine Tey, The Daughter of Time
3. (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.
   In consequence, macroscopic amounts of matter in thermal contact with one another tend to be at the same temperature, a fact of sufficient fundamental importance to merit belated designation as the Zeroth Law of Thermodynamics. 2000 September, Clinton D. Stoner, “Inquiries into the Nature of Free Energy and Entropy in Respect to Biochemical Thermodynamics”, in Entropy, volume 2, number 3, →DOI, →ISSN, pages 106–141
4. (figurative, colloquial) The general mood.
   But it is both easier and more accurate to take the industry's true temperature at small private gatherings like a conference organized by the Ziff Davis publishing company in northern California last week. 2005-08-20, Seth Schiesel, “Taking the Temperature of the Creative Body”, in The New York Times, →ISSN
5. (obsolete) The state or condition of being tempered or moderated.
6. (now rare, archaic) The balance of humours in the body, or one's character or outlook as considered determined from this; temperament.
   Only a strong dose of love will cure / A woman with an angry temperature. 1993, James Michie, trans. Ovid, The Art of Love, Book II