3 entries under this word
n. [Fr. détrempe, from dé, for des, equiv. to Lat. dis, and tremper, to dip, soak, for temper, from Lat. temperare, to temper.] (Paint.) A peculiar sort of painting with opaque colors, ground and diluted with water, glue, &c. Elmes.
n. [Prefix dis and temper, q. v. Cf. DESTEMPER.]
Countries under the tropic of a distemper uninhabitable. Raleigh. 3. A morbid state of the animal system; indisposition; malady; disorder;—at present often restricted to the diseases of brutes. They heighten distempers to diseases. Suckling.
There is a sickness Which puts some of us in distemper. Shak. 7. (Paint.) A preparation of opaque or body colors, with size instead of oil, usually for scene-painting, or for walls and ceiling of rooms. Syn.—Disease; disorder; sickness; illness; malady; indisposition. See DISEASE.
v. t. [imp. & p. p. DISTEMPERED; p. pr. & vb. n. DISTEMPERING.]
Sense 1. To derange the functions of, whether bodily or mental; to disorder; to disease. Shak.
The imagination, when completely distempered, is the most incurable of all disordered faculties. Buckminster.
Sense 2. To deprive of temper or moderation; to disturb; to ruffle; to make disaffected, ill-humored, or malignant. “Distempered spirits.” Coleridge.
Sense 3. To disorder the spirits or intellect of; to intoxicate. [Rare.]
The courtiers reeling, And the duke himself, I dare not say distempered, But kind, and in his tottering chair carousing. Massinger.
Sense 4. (Paint.) To make into distemper; as, to distemper colors with size.