temperature

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

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.
  2. An elevated body temperature, as present in many illnesses; fever.
    • 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. 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...
  4. A parameter that controls the degree of randomness of the output.
  5. 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...
    • [Stephen] Miller's words did not seem designed to lower the temperature. - 2025 September 13, Edward Luce, “A descent into mutual loathing”, in FT Weekend, London: The Financial Times Ltd., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 7:
  6. The state or condition of being tempered or moderated.
  7. The balance of humours in the body, or one's character or outlook as considered determined from this; temperament.
    • Our intemperence it is that pulls so many several incurable diseases on our heads, that hastens old age, perverts our temperature, and brings upon us sudden death. - 1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton],...
    • […]that not only the production of a rational Being was concern'd in it, but that possibly the happy foundation and temperature of his body, perhaps his genius and the very cast of his mind […] - 1759–1767, [Laurence...
    • 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

Origin

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

Forms

temperatures

Synonyms

temperature

Hypernyms

physical property

Hyponyms

apparent temperature closure temperature color temperature equicohesive temperature Hagedorn temperature Planck temperature planetary equilibrium temperature

Related

temperature inversion degrees Fahrenheit degrees Rankine degrees Celsius centigrade kelvin cool cold fresh fever hot lukewarm warm boiling scalding incandescent scorching scorchio red-hot molten egelid balmy toasty tepid

Derived

absolute temperature autoignition temperature biotemperature body temperature buying temperature convective temperature core temperature critical temperature cryotemperature Curie temperature distemperature dry bulb temperature dry-bulb temperature equivalent potential temperature equiviscous temperature floor temperature challenge glass transition temperature high-temperature superconductivity high-temperature superconductor humiture ignition temperature I have a temperature IQ of room temperature kinetic temperature