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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. |
TEM'PERATURE, n. [L. temperature.]
Constitution; state; degree
of any quality.
The best composition and temperature is, to have openness in fame and opinion, secrecy in habit, dissimulation in seasonable use, and a power to feign, if there be no remedy. Bacon. Memory depends upon the consistence and the temperature of the brain. I. Watts. Freedom from passion; moderation.
[Obs.]
In that proud port, which her so goodly graceth, Condition with respect to heat
or cold, especially as indicated by the sensation produced, or by the
thermometer or pyrometer; degree of heat or cold; as, the
temperature of the air; high temperature; low
temperature; temperature of freezing or of boiling.
Mixture; compound.
[Obs.]
Made a temperature of brass and iron together. Holland. Absolute temperature. (Physics) See under Absolute. -- Animal temperature (Physiol.), the nearly constant temperature maintained in the bodies of warm-blooded (homoiothermal) animals during life. The ultimate source of the heat is to be found in the potential energy of the food and the oxygen which is absorbed from the air during respiration. See Homoiothermal. -- Temperature sense (Physiol.), the faculty of perceiving cold and warmth, and so of perceiving differences of temperature in external objects. H. N. Martin. The degree of heat of the body of a living being, esp.
of the human body] also (Colloq.), loosely, the excess of this over
the normal (of the human body 98°-99.5° F., in the mouth of
an adult about 98.4°).
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