tempering

1. gerundparticiplepresentpresent participle and gerund of temper

plural temperings

1. The act by which something is tempered.

   Caron has, in fact, discovered this very curious circumstance, that a bar of steel becomes shorter under successive temperings, while it increases in size, laterally, in such a manner, that there actually is an increase of volume.

   1872, Louis Emmanuel Gruner, The Manufacture of Steel, page 29

2. potteryarchitectureA non-plastic material, such as sand, added to clay to prevent shrinkage and cracking during drying or firing; temper.

   Clay and tempering were packed around the pole together with plenty of water[.]

   1983, Barry Cunliffe, chapter 6, in Danebury Hillfort, Stroud: Tempus