Etymograph

English

temperature

Temperature is borrowed from Latin temperātūra ‘due measure, proportion’, from the past participle stem of temperō ‘to temper, moderate’.

  1. Proto-Italicc. 1500–700 BCE*tempos1‘stretch; period of time’reconstructed
  2. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEtemperō2‘to temper, moderate’
  3. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEtemperātūra2‘due or proper measure’past participle stem of temperō
  4. Englishearliest quotation 1624temperature2

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor

  1. 1 Wiktionary, Latin tempero
  2. 2 Wiktionary, English temperature
  3. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1624, Democritus Junior pseudonym; Robert Burt, The Anatomy of Melancholy: […]: “Our intemperence it is that pulls so many several…”.

Lineage

  1. Proto-Italicc. 1500–700 BCE*temposWiktionary, Latin tempero‘stretch; period of time’reconstructed
  2. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEtemperōWiktionary, English temperature‘to temper, moderate’
  3. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEtemperātūraWiktionary, English temperature‘due or proper measure’past participle stem of temperō
  4. Englishearliest quotation 1624temperatureWiktionary, English temperature. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1624, Democritus Junior pseudonym; Robert Burt, The Anatomy of Melancholy: […]: “Our intemperence it is that pulls so many several…”

Word family

English words that share an ancestor with temperature, grouped by the ancestor they share, most familiar first.

through Proto-Indo-European *temp- ‘to stretch, string’

through Proto-Italic *tempos ‘stretch’

  • contemporary ← contemporārius ← tempus
  • temple ← *temp(u)la ← tempora ← tempus
  • temporary ← temporarius ← tempora ← tempus
  • tense ← tens ← tens ← tempus
  • tempo ← tempus
  • template ← templet ← temple ← tempus

54 more relatives in the full family tree

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Today it means

noun A measure of cold or heat, often measurable with a thermometer.

Sources

Sources: Wiktionary, “temperature”; the older steps come from the Wiktionary entry for Latin tempero. By Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0, via kaikki.org (dump of Oct 3 2026); text adapted and restructured. Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word. License.

Etymograph / Proto-Italic *tempos / temperature