distemper

plural distempers

1. countableuncountablebiologyA viral disease of animals, such as dogs and cats, characterised by fever, coughing and catarrh.
2. archaiccountableuncountableA disorder of the humours of the body; a disease.

   O perplex'd diſcompoſition, O ridling diſtemper, O miſerable condition of Man.

   1624, John Donne, “1. Meditation”, in Deuotions upon Emergent Occasions, and Seuerall Steps in My Sicknes: […], London: […] A[ugustine] M[atthews] for Thomas Iones, →OCLC, page 8

   3 more examples

   […] and is the onlie laſt remedie for all debilities which haue long vexed the body through a hote diſtemper of the Lever, ſuch as a hote Gutte; it allayeth all Inflamations inward & outward.

   1618, Patri[c]k Anderson, The Colde Spring of Kinghorne Craig […], Edinburgh: Thomas Finlason, unnumbered page

   [M]y spirits began to sink under the Burden of a strong Distemper, and Nature was exhausted with the Violence of the Fever […]

   1719 May 6 (Gregorian calendar), [Daniel Defoe], The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, […], London: […] W[illiam] Taylor […], →OCLC, page 105

   —’Tis true, said I, correcting the proposition,—the Bastile is not an evil to be despised;—but strip it of its towers—fill up the fosse,—unbarricade the doors—call it simply a confinement, and suppose ’tis some tyrant of a distemper—and not of a man, which holds you in it,—the evil vanishes, and you bear the other half without complaint.

   1768, Mr. Yorick [pseudonym; Laurence Sterne], A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy, volume I, London: […] T. Becket and P. A. De Hondt, […], →OCLC

3. countableuncountableA glue-based paint.
4. countableA painting produced with this kind of paint.

present singular third person distempers · participle present distempering · participle past distempered · past distempered · first person past singular distempered · archaic present second person singular distemperest · past second person singular distempered · archaic past second person singular distemperedst · present singular third person distempers · archaic present singular third person distempereth · past singular third person distempered · past plural distempered · past subjunctive distempered · participle present distempering · participle past distempered

1. To temper or mix unduly; to make disproportionate; to change the due proportions of.
2. To derange the functions of, whether bodily, mental, or spiritual; to disorder; to disease.

   The imagination, when completely distempered, is the most incurable of all disordered faculties.

   1814, Joseph Stevens Buckminster, Sermons, Boston: John Eliot, Sermon XVI, p. 267

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   Guildenstern. The King, sir— Hamlet. Ay, sir, what of him? Guildenstern. Is in his retirement, marvellous distemper’d. Hamlet. With drink, sir? Guildenstern. No, my lord; rather with choler.

   c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene ii]

   To some extent the Nore Mutiny may be regarded as analogous to the distempering irruption of contagious fever in a frame constitutionally sound, and which anon throws it off.

   1888–1891, Herman Melville, “[Billy Budd, Foretopman.] Chapter III.”, in Billy Budd and Other Stories, London: John Lehmann, published 1951, →OCLC

3. To deprive of temper or moderation; to disturb; to ruffle; to make disaffected, ill-humoured, or malignant.

   1799-1800, Samuel Taylor Coleridge (translator), The Piccolomini by Friedrich Schiller, Boston: Francis A. Niccolls & Co., 1902, p. 37, I have been long accustomed to defend you, To heal and pacify distempered spirits.

4. To intoxicate.

   For the Courtiers reeling, And the Duke himselfe, (I dare not say distemperd, But kind, and in his tottering chaire carousing) They doe the countrie service.

   1623, Philip Massinger, The Duke of Milan, act I, scene 1

5. To paint using distemper.

   We cleaned out the cellars, fixed the shelves, distempered the walls, polished the woodwork, whitewashed the ceiling, stained the floor;

   1933 January 9, George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], chapter XIX, in Down and Out in Paris and London, London: Victor Gollancz […], →OCLC

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   He looked round the poor room, at the distempered walls, and the bad engravings in meretricious frames, the crinkly paper and wax flowers on the chiffonier; and he thought of a room like Father Bryan's, with panelling, with cut glass, with tulips in silver pots, such a room as he had hoped to have for his own.

   1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter X, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC

6. To mix (colours) in the way of distemper.

   to distemper colors with size