English
Pronunciation
audio|en-us-tempered.ogg|Audio (US)
Adjective
en-adj|-
- Of one's disposition.
#:The Pyncheon Elm, throughout its great circumference, was all alive, and full of the morning sun and a sweet-tempered little breeze, which lingered within this verdant sphere, and set a thousand leafy tongues a-whispering all at once. This aged tree appeared to have suffered nothing from the gale. � Edgar Allen Poe, The House of the Seven Gables, Chapter 19.
- Pertaining to the metallurgical process for finishing metals.
#:1851 "Not forged!" and snatching Perth's levelled iron from the crotch, Ahab held it out, exclaiming -- "Look ye, Nantucketer; here in this hand I hold his death! Tempered in blood, and tempered by lightning are these barbs; and I swear to temper them triply in that hot place behind the fin, where the white whale most feels his accursed life!" � Herman Melville, Moby Dick.
- Of something moderated or balanced by other considerations.
#:1792 The downcast eye, the rosy blush, the retiring grace, are all proper in their season; but modesty, being the child of reason, cannot long exist with the sensibility that is not tempered by reflection � Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman.
- music Pertaining to the well-tempered scale, where the twelve notes per octave of the standard keyboard are tuned in such a way that it is possible to play music in any major or minor key and it will not sound perceptibly out of tune.
Verb
tempered
- past of|temper
fa:tempered
io:tempered
fi:tempered
te:tempered
vi:tempered
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