distemper

From Old French destemprer, from Latin distemperare.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /dɪsˈtɛmpə(ɹ)/

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• Rhymes: -ɛmpə(ɹ)

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.
   • 1624, John Donne, Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions, Meditation I., in The Complete Poetry and Selected Prose of John Donne, ed. Charles M. Coffin, New York: Modern Library (1952), pp. 415-416:

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

   • 1719 April 25​, [Daniel Defoe], The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, […], 3rd edition, London: […] W[illiam] Taylor […], published 1719, OCLC 838630407, page 105:

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

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

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.
   • 1387–1400, Geoffrey Chaucer, “The Parsons Tale”, in The Canterbury Tales, [Westminster: William Caxton, published 1478], OCLC 230972125; republished in [William Thynne], editor, The Workes of Geffray Chaucer Newlye Printed, […], [London]: […] [Richard Grafton for] Iohn Reynes […], 1542, OCLC 932884868, folio cxiii, verso, Sequitur de Gula, column 2:

     This ſynne hath manie ſpeces: […] The fourth is, whan through the greate abundaunce of hys meete, the humours in hys body ben diſtempred.

     This sin [gluttony] has many species: […] The fourth is, when through the great abundance of his meat, the humours in his body be distempered.

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 606515358, [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, 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 3.”, in Billy Budd and Other Stories, London: John Lehmann, published 1951, OCLC 639975898:

     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,

     I have been long accustomed to defend you,

     To heal and pacify distempered spirits.

4. To intoxicate.
   • 1623, Philip Massinger, The Duke of Milan, 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 4293071:

     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 19, in Down and Out in Paris and London, London: Victor Gollancz […], OCLC 2603818:

     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

• imprested