[f. TEMPER v. + -ER1.] One who or that which tempers.
1. † One who mixes (obs.); one who prepares (clay, mortar, etc.); one who tempers (steel).
a. 1617. Hieron, Wks., II. 2. Still there will be … some temperers of leaven with the sweet lumpe of Gods sacred truth.
a. 1619. Fotherby, Atheom. (1622), Pref. 6. Temperers of Lyme and Mortar.
1629. in Cochran-Patrick, Rec. Coinage Scotl. (1876), II. 19. The Wardane Counterwardane Sinker and Temperer of the yrnes.
1839. Ure, Dict. Arts, 883. The needles are now ready for the tempering … they … are carried in boxes to the temperer.
1896. Chambers’s Jrnl., XIII. 22/2. The temperer requires a supply of water for the sufficient moistening of the clay.
† 2. One who or that which allays or mitigates.
1630. R. Johnson’s Kingd. & Commw., 6. Whereas cold can without doors receiue no temperer; heat on the contrarie is capable of very many.
1638. Rider, Hor. Odes, I. (1644), 32. O thou my labour’s sweetest temperer [L. lenimen].
1904. J. Payne, Requiem Dead in S. Africa, in Songs of Consolation, 96.
| Hailing her harbinger of peace and truth, | |
| Sword of the just and shield of the opprest, | |
| Time-honoured temperer of wrath with ruth. |
3. One who uses or advocates temperament in music: see TEMPERAMENT 10.
1829–32. Gen. P. Thomson, Exerc. (1842), II. 140. Do the temperers maintain … that it is possible to mend this passage by any alteration in the intonation?
† 4. = CRATER 1, mixing vessel. Obs.
1675. Hobbes, Odyssey, 32. Then Nestor bids one fill the temperer With wine that aged was eleven year. Ibid. (1676), Iliad, I. 452. Filled with sweet wine the Temp’rers stood.
