Tempering

noun, verb

noun, verb ·3 syllables ·Moderate ·High school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The act by which something is tempered.

    "Caron has, in fact, discovered this very curious circumstance, that a bar of steel becomes shorter under successive temperings, while it increases in size, laterally, in such a manner, that there actually is an increase of volume."

  2. 2
    hardening something by heat treatment wordnet
  3. 3
    A non-plastic material, such as sand, added to clay to prevent shrinkage and cracking during drying or firing; temper.

    "Clay and tempering were packed around the pole together with plenty of water[.]"

Verb
  1. 1
    present participle and gerund of temper form-of, gerund, participle, present
Adjective
  1. 1
    moderating by making more temperate wordnet

Example

More examples

"Caron has, in fact, discovered this very curious circumstance, that a bar of steel becomes shorter under successive temperings, while it increases in size, laterally, in such a manner, that there actually is an increase of volume."

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