Also 4–5 tempil, 5 -elle, -ylle, 6 Sc. tympille. [a. OF. temple fem. (11th c. in Roland), = Prov. templa, It. tempia:—pop. L. type *tempula, *templa, app. for cl. L. tempora, pl. of tempus ‘temple of the head’ (taken later as fem. sing.: cf. BIBLE). OF. temple (still in Dict. Acad., 1694–1740) is represented in mod.F. by tempe (already in Palsgr., 1530).]
1. The flattened region on each side of the (human) forehead. (Chiefly in pl.)
c. 1310. St. Margaret, 219, in Horstm., Altengl. Leg. (1881), 231. Sche toke him bi þe temples [earlier version bi þe toppe]; about sche him swong.
a. 1340. Hampole, Psalter cxxxi. 5. Þe tempils of þi heued waxis heuy.
a. 1400. Poem on Blood-letting, in Rel. Ant., I. 189. Two [places] at the templys thay mot blede.
14[?]. Voc., in Wr.-Wülcker, 631/2. Tempelle, tempora.
1535. Coverdale, Judg. iv. 21. Then Iael … smote the nale in thorow the temples of his heade, so yt he sancke to ye earth.
1643. Sir T. Browne, Relig. Med., II. § 12. Let no dreames my head infest, But such as Jacobs temples blest.
1703. Pope, Vertumnus, 34. And wreaths of hay his sun-burnt temples shade.
1813. Scott, Rokeby, I. viii. A scorching clime, And toil, had … Roughened the brow, the temples bared.
1814. Cary, Dante, Paradise, XXV. 11. I … shall claim the wreath Due to the poet’s temples.
1839. Margaret Lawrence Jones, Jubal, 85.
| The sand a burning pillow spread, | |
| His throbbing temples prest; | |
| He could not speak—all hope had fled, | |
| And horror filled his breast. |
b. transf. A corresponding part in lower animals.
1769. E. Bancroft, Guiana, 181. The temples, rump and belly are of a violet colour.
1826. Kirby & Sp., Entomol., III. 365. External anatomy of insects…. Tempora (the Temples). Those parts which lie on the outside of the posterior ball of the eyes.
1850. R. G. Cumming, Hunter’s Life S. Afr. (1902), 87/1. My dinner consisted of a piece of flesh from the temple of the elephant.
1860. Mayne, Expos. Lex., Temple,… Ornithol., Zool. Applied to the lateral region of the head comprised between the eyes and ears.
† 2. pl. Ornaments of jewelery or needlework formerly worn by ladies on the sides of the forehead. Obs.
c. 1430. Lydg., Min. Poems (Percy Soc.), 56. A fowle visage with gay temples of atyre.
1439. E. E. Wills (1882), 116 (C’tess Warwick). That my grete templys with the Baleys be sold to the ytmest pryse.
[1656. Dugdale, Antiq. Warwick., 330/1 [marg. note on quot. 1439]. Jewels hanging on womens foreheads by Bodkins thrust into their hair.]
3. Each of the side-members or limbs of a pair of spectacles, which clasp the sides of the head of the wearer. U.S.
1877. Knight, Dict. Mech., Temple … one of the bars on the outer ends of the spectacle bows [i.e., rims of the lenses] by which the spectacles are made to clasp the head of the wearer. [Hence in later Dicts.]
4. attrib. and Comb., as temple-bone, -pulse, -shot; temple-spectacles, spectacles having jointed side-limbs that grasp the temples.
1615. Crooke, Body of Man, 583. Where it yssueth out of the *Temple-bone it is broader and thicker.
1793. Holcroft, Lavater’s Physiogn., xiv. 75. The temple-bones … are slow in coming to perfection.
1891. Daily News, 28 Oct., 7/2. The witness was feeling the *temple pulse while administering.
1899. F. V. Kirby, Sport E. C. Africa, xxi. 232. I ran in and killed him with a *temple shot from my Metford.
1762. Goldsm., Cit. W., lv. He had more powder in his hair … a pair of *temple spectacles, and his hat under his arm.
