noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   A state of adverse or unhealthy atmospheric conditions. archaic, countable, uncountable
2. 2
   Unhealthy imbalance of bodily humours; a disorder. archaic, countable, uncountable

   "Standing waters, thick and ill-coloured, […] cause foul distemperatures in the body and mind of man […]"

Example

More examples

"Standing waters, thick and ill-coloured, […] cause foul distemperatures in the body and mind of man […]"

Etymology

From dis- + temperature.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.