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Distemper   /dɪstˈɛmpər/   Listen
noun
Distemper  n.  
1.
An undue or unnatural temper, or disproportionate mixture of parts. Note: This meaning and most of the following are to be referred to the Galenical doctrine of the four "humors" in man. See Humor. According to the old physicians, these humors, when unduly tempered, produce a disordered state of body and mind.
2.
Severity of climate; extreme weather, whether hot or cold. (Obs.) "Those countries... under the tropic, were of a distemper uninhabitable."
3.
A morbid state of the animal system; indisposition; malady; disorder; at present chiefly applied to diseases of brutes; as, a distemper in dogs; the horse distemper; the horn distemper in cattle. "They heighten distempers to diseases."
4.
Morbid temper of the mind; undue predominance of a passion or appetite; mental derangement; bad temper; ill humor. (Obs.) "Little faults proceeding on distemper." "Some frenzy distemper had got into his head."
5.
Political disorder; tumult.
6.
(Paint.)
(a)
A preparation of opaque or body colors, in which the pigments are tempered or diluted with weak glue or size (cf. Tempera) instead of oil, usually for scene painting, or for walls and ceilings of rooms.
(b)
A painting done with this preparation.
Synonyms: Disease; disorder; sickness; illness; malady; indisposition; ailment. See Disease.


verb
Distemper  v. t.  (past & past part. distempered; pres. part. distempering)  
1.
To temper or mix unduly; to make disproportionate; to change the due proportions of. (Obs.) "When... the humors in his body ben distempered."
2.
To derange the functions of, whether bodily, mental, or spiritual; to disorder; to disease. "The imagination, when completely distempered, is the most incurable of all disordered faculties."
3.
To deprive of temper or moderation; to disturb; to ruffle; to make disaffected, ill-humored, or malignant. "Distempered spirits."
4.
To intoxicate. (R.) "The courtiers reeling, And the duke himself, I dare not say distempered, But kind, and in his tottering chair carousing."
5.
(Paint.) To mix (colors) in the way of distemper; as, to distemper colors with size. (R.)





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Distemper" Quotes from Famous Books



... in the following year; an event that, for the first time, really introduced him to the public at large. To 1857, again, belongs Rossetti's Blue Closet and Damsel of the Sangrael, both painted for Mr. W. Morris. And in 1857 and 1858, the famous and hapless distemper pictures on the walls of the Union Debating Society's room at Oxford, were engaging Rossetti and his associates, including Burne-Jones, William Morris, Mr. Val. Prinsep, Mr. Arthur Hughes, and Mr. ...
— Frederic Lord Leighton - An Illustrated Record of His Life and Work • Ernest Rhys
... Dartmouth College were at times of a quality which would not be called the best, appears from the annexed paragraph, written in the year 1774. "He [Eleazer Wheelock, President of the College] has had the mortification to lose two cows, and the rest were greatly hurt by a contagious distemper, so that they could not have a full supply of milk; and once the pickle leaked out of the beef-barrel, so that the meat was not sweet. He had also been ill-used with respect to the purchase ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... on deck all was quiet. The cool fresh air had an instantaneous effect on my shattered nerves, the violent throbbing in my head ceased, and I began to hug myself with the notion that my distemper, whatever it might have been, had ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... He is a fair type of the fast man of intellect and culture, whose ambition is to figure in politics. He is in Congress and can command the ear of the House at any time. His great trouble is his Free-soil record. He took Free-soilism like a distemper and mounted the Buffalo platform. He is well over it now, however, with the exception of a single heresy—the homestead law. He is for giving homesteads to the actual settlers upon the ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... not contented? Wherefore reach At things which, but for thee, O Latmian! Had been my dreary death? Fool! I began To feel distemper'd longings: to desire The utmost privilege that ocean's sire Could grant in benediction: to be free Of all his kingdom. Long in misery 380 I wasted, ere in one extremest fit I plung'd for life or death. To interknit One's senses ...
— Endymion - A Poetic Romance • John Keats


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