Also 4–5 temperans, 4–6 -aunce, 6 -anse; (5–6 temporaunce, 7 -ance). [a. AF. temperaunce (R. Grosseteste a. 1250), ad. L. temperāntia moderation, f. temperānt-em, pr. pple. of temperāre to TEMPER As to previous history, see Note below.]
I. 1. The practice or habit of restraining oneself in provocation, passion, desire, etc.; rational self-restraint. (One of the four cardinal virtues.)
a. Self-restraint and moderation in action of any kind, in the expression of opinion, etc.; suppression of any tendency to passionate action; in early use, esp. self-control, restraint, or forbearance, when provoked to anger or impatience.
[a. 1250. R. Grosseteste (in Godef., Compl.). C’est force et temperaunce.]
a. 1340. Hampole, Psalter xxxii. 2. Debonere men þat has temperaunce in all thynge.
1382. Wyclif, Col. iii. 12. Therfore clothe ȝou … [with] the entrailis of mercy, benygnite, and mekenesse, temperaunce [Gr. πραότητα, L. modestiam, Tindale to R.V. meekness], and pacience.
c. 1386. Chaucer, Frankl. T., 57. On euery wrong a man may nat be wreken, After the tyme moste be temperaunce.
14[?]. in Tundale’s Vis. (1843), 135. Hys hart dawnt so by temperance To voyde rancour and plante in sufferaunce.
14[?]. in Wars Eng. in France (1864), II. 521. The iiij. cardinalle vertuse, named Justice, Prudence, Force, and Temperaunce.
1511. Colet, Serm. Conf. & Ref., B vij b. The lawes that commaunde sobernes and temperance in adournynge of the body.
1552. Huloet, Temperaunce … is a moderate gouernaunce of reason, and also as one of the car[di]nall vertues.
1590. Spenser, F. Q., I. viii. 34. He … calmd his wrath with goodly temperance.
1654. Whitelocke, Jrnl. Swed. Emb. (1772), II. 421. Yett it pleased God to give me much patience and temperance to bear this … ingratitude.
1781. Gibbon, Decl. & F., xxvii. III. 9. The choice of a venerable old man … announced to the court of Constantinople the gravity and temperance of the British usurper.
1851. Hussey, Papal Power, iii. 162. The moral force of the testimony … is weakened by the manifest defects of the case, and some want of temperance in the mode of conducting it.
b. Self-restraint in the indulgence of any natural affection or appetency; moderation in the pursuit of a gratification, in the exercise of a feeling, or in the use of anything; in early use often = chastity.
1340. Ayenb., 124. Temperance [lokeþ þane man] þet he ne by be none kuede loue amerd.
1526. Tindale, Acts xxiv. 25 As he preached of Iustice, temperaunce [Vulg. castitate, Wyclif, Coverd. chastite, Rhem. chastitie], and Iudgement to come, Felix trembled.
1535. Coverdale, Gal. v. 23. The frute of the sprete is loue, ioye, peace,… goodnesse, faithfulnes, mekenesse, temperaunce.
1576. Fleming, Panopl. Epist., 270. She forgetteth temperance, and waxeth incontinent.
1603. Holland, Plutarch’s Mor., 65. When it ruleth and ordereth our lust or concupiscense, limiting out a certaine measure, and lawfull proportion of time unto pleasures, it is called Temperance.
1656. Stanley, Hist. Philos., v. (1701), 164. Temperance, the Principle of subduing Desires, and yielding to no Pleasures, but living Moderately.
1733. J. Bland, Praise of Women, iv. 97. Temperance, with which the Females are for the most Part endow’d, is such an heavenly Virtue, it qualifies them for all other Virtues whatever.
1846. Trench, Mirac., i. (1862), 112. The secret of temperance lies not in the scanty supply, but in the strong self-restraint.
1875. Manning, Mission H. Ghost, x. 266. Temperance is the excellence of the will in controlling the passion for pleasure.
2. spec. The avoidance of excess in eating and drinking; esp., in later use, moderation in regard to intoxicants, sobriety. Now often applied to the practice or principle of total abstinence from alcoholic drink; teetotalism.
[1509. Fisher, Funeral Serm. C’tess of Richmond, Wks. (1870), 293. Her sobre temperaunce in metes & drynkes was knowen to al them that were conuersaunt with her.]
1542. Boorde, Dyetary, ix. (1870), 251. Surfetes do kyll many men, and temporaunce doth prolonge the lyfe.
1697. Dampier, Voy. (1729), I. 69. Having … agreed upon some particular Rules, especially of Temperance and Sobriety.
a. 1718. Penn, Tracts, Wks. 1726, I. 909. Temperance,… Properly and strictly speaking it refers to Diet.
1727. Bailey, vol. II., Temperance … the two Species of it are Sobriety, which moderates our eating and drinking, and Chastity.
1727–46. Thomson, Summer, 1609. Sound Temperance, Healthful in heart and look.
1775. Ash, Temperance, Moderation, the opposite to gluttony and drunkenness.
1826. (title) American Society for the Promotion of Temperance.
1837. T. Whittemore Bramble, 78–9. It is a very wrong opinion some have, that if a person is going to live up to the Bible doctrine of temperance in drink, a man must have his morning dram, his eleven o’clock, four o’clock, and evening libation.
1849. Cobden, in Morley, Life, xviii. (1902), 69/1. With a delicate frame … I have been enabled, by temperance, to do the work of a strong man.
1887. Miss Braddon, Like Unlike, i. Where I can enjoy a stiff glass of grog with my feet on the hobs, and with nobody to preach temperance.
1890. Besant, Demoniac, i. Not the least breath of suspicion had ever rested upon him in the matter of temperance.
b. attrib. usually, Pertaining to, practising, or advocating total abstinence, as temperance association, drink, lecture, man, meeting, movement, reformation, society, woman, work; temperance hotel, inn, one where no intoxicants are sold or provided.
1836. J. Hume, Sp. Ho. Com., 24 March. There were perhaps many present, who were advocates of Temperance Societies.
1837. Dickens, Pickw., xxxiii. The Brick Lane Branch of the United Grand Junction Ebenezer Temperance Association.
1850. E. Elliott, More Verse & Prose, Beware Dogmas, 9. James … keeps, abjuring rum and gin, A Temperance inn.
1855. Zoologist, XIII. 4681. Assisting Father Mathew in the temperance-movement.
1882. Annie C. Wetmore, in Annie Wittenmyer, Hist. Woman’s Temperance Crusade, 488–9. The temperance women were impressed with the feeling that the time had come for action, but as none were ready to visit the saloons, as the women of Ohio and other States were doing, they hardly knew what to do.
1886. C. E. Pascoe, London of To-day, iii. (ed. 3), 55. One of the best ‘temperance’ dining-places in London.
1890. Besant, Demoniac, v. Captain and crew must be all temperance men: there is not to be one single drop of drink … put on board.
1890. Dawson Burns (title), Temperance History.
II. † 3. a. The action or fact of tempering; mingling or combining in due proportion, adjusting, moderating, modification, toning down, bringing into a temperate or moderate state (see TEMPER v. 1–5): = TEMPERAMENT 8, 9.
1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., V. xli. (Bodl. MS.). For temperans and keling of þe lifte side.
c. 1440. Alphabet of Tales, 280. Be temperans of a mervalos evynhed, ather of þaim loste ane ee.
1530. Palsgr., 279/2. Temperaunce, atrempance, attemperance.
1531. Elyot, Gov., III. xxiv. By the whiche mutuall coniunction and iust temperaunce of those two studyes he attayned to suche a fourme in all his gouernaunce.
1552. Huloet, Temperaunce or temperynge, or moderation of mynglyng thynges togither, temperatura.
1596. Dalrymple, trans. Leslie’s Hist. Scot., I. (S.T.S.), 111. A forme of commoune weil, quhair the people haue the hail authoritie,… bot wt sik temperance, that cheif vpon thair king, and counsel … the Repub. does depend.
† b. A tempered or properly proportioned consistence, constitution, or state; temperate condition, moderateness: = TEMPERAMENT 1, 2. Obs.
1471. Ripley, Comp. Alch., IV. iv., in Ashm., Theat. Chem. Brit. (1652), 145. And so promotyd unto most perfyt temperance.
1533. Elyot, Cast. Helthe (1539), 1 b. Fyre … is the clarifier of other elementes, if they be vyciate or out of their naturall temperaunce. Ibid., 17. They be in the highest degree of heate and drithe, aboue the iuste temperaunce of mannes body.
1595. Spenser, Col. Clout, 553. Through the myld temperance of her goodly raies.
1607. Topsell, Four-f. Beasts (1658), 345. Boiled until they come unto a soft temperance.
1638. Cowley, Love’s Riddle, III. i. But were all Men of my Temperance, and Wisdom too, You should woo us.
† c. The keeping of time in music. Obs.
1549. Compl. Scotl., vi. 39. Ther syndry soundis hed nothir temperance nor tune.
† 4. Moderate temperature; freedom from the extremes of heat and cold; mildness of weather or climate; temperateness; cf. TEMPERAMENT 4, 5, TEMPERATURE 6, 7. Obs.
1432–50. trans. Higden (Rolls), I. 75. Hit ioyethe in temperaunce, felenge neither coldenesse ne heete.
c. 1440. Alphabet of Tales, 66. Whar þer was temperans or þe ayr & sownd of watir rynyng, & syngyng of burdis, and gude smell of flowris.
1542. Boorde, Dyetary, viii. (1870), 247. In your beed lye not to hote nor to colde, but in a temporaunce.
1596. Dalrymple, trans. Leslie’s Hist. Scot. (S.T.S.), I. 5. Sa grett clemencie and temperance of the wathir.
1610. Shaks., Temp., II. i. 42. It [the island] must needs be of subtle, tender, and delicate temperance.
[Note. L. temperantia (whence F. and Eng. temperance) was used by Cicero to render Plato’s σωφροσύνη ‘soundmindedness, prudence, moderation, sobriety, self-control,’ in Plato and in the Stoics, one of the original four (cardinal) virtues, φρόνησις, δικαιοσύνη, ἀνδρεία, σωφροσύνη, rendered in L. by Jerome and Augustine prudentia, iustitia, fortitudo, temperantia; also in Albertus Magnus, Aquinas, and the mediæval writers generally, and in the med.L. version of Aristotle’s Nicom. Ethics. Thence the use of temperaunce by Grosseteste, and the earlier Eng. use. But temperantia was not orig. a Christian word: it occurs nowhere in the Vulgate or the Antiqua; it is not one of the ‘fruits of the Spirit,’ even in the expanded list in the Vulgate, in Galat. v. 23. By Wyclif, however, temperaunce was used to render L. modestia ‘moderation,’ in the Rhemish, modestie. In the Eng. versions from Tindale onward, temperance or temperancie, renders Gr. ἐγκράτεια ‘self-mastery or restraint, esp. of certain sensual impulses,’ in L. commonly continentia. In Acts xxiv. 25 Tindale, Cranmer, Geneva, 1611, and Revised have temperance, where Vulgate has castitate, Wyclif, Coverdale, Rhemish chastite, -tie. In 2 Peter i. 6 (bis) T. and Cov. have temperancy, Cr., Gen. etc., temperaunce, -ance; V. abstinentia, W. and Rhem. absty-, abstinence. In Gal. v. 22, T., Cr., Gen., have temperancy(e, -ie, Cov., 1611, Rev., tempera(u)nce; Vulg. (which interpolates 3 additional ‘fruits of the spirit’), continentia, Wycl. and Rhem., contynaunce, continencie. or the Engl. senses above, 1 a. corresponds to the L. temperantia, Gr. σωφροσύνη; 1 b. in general to Gr. ἐγκράτεια, of which sense 2 may be considered a specialized use.]
