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It is not only important, but, in a degree necessary, that the people of this country, should have an American Dictionary of the English language; for, although the body of the language is the same as in England, and it is desirable to perpetuate that sameness, yet some differences must exist. Language is the expression of ideas; and if the people of one country cannot preserve an identity of ideas, they cannot retain an identity of language. |
DISTEMPER, n. [dis and temper.]
DISTEMPER, v.t.
To temper or mix
unduly; to make disproportionate; to change the due proportions
of.
[Obs.]
When . . . the humors in his body ben distempered. Chaucer. To derange the functions of, whether
bodily, mental, or spiritual; to disorder; to disease.
Shak.
The imagination, when completely distempered, is the most incurable of all disordered faculties. Buckminster. To deprive of temper or moderation; to
disturb; to ruffle; to make disaffected, ill-humored, or
malignant.
"Distempered spirits." Coleridge. To intoxicate.
[R.]
The courtiers reeling, To mix (colors) in the way
of distemper; as, to distemper colors with size.
[R.] An undue or unnatural temper, or
disproportionate mixture of parts.
Bacon.
* 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. Severity of climate; extreme weather,
whether hot or cold.
[Obs.]
Those countries . . . under the tropic, were of a distemper uninhabitable. Sir W. Raleigh. 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. Suckling. Morbid temper of the mind; undue
predominance of a passion or appetite; mental derangement; bad
temper; ill humor.
[Obs.]
Little faults proceeding on distemper. Shak. Some frenzy distemper had got into his head. Bunyan. Political disorder; tumult.
Waller. 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.
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