intemperance

American  

[in-tem-per-uhns, -pruhns] / ɪnˈtɛm pər əns, -prəns /

noun

1. excessive or immoderate indulgence in alcoholic beverages.

2. excessive indulgence of appetite or passion.

3. lack of moderation or due restraint, as in action or speech.

4. an act or instance of any of these.

   a long series of intemperances.

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Etymology

Origin of intemperance

First recorded in 1400–50; late Middle English word from Latin word intemperantia. See in- ³, temperance

Explanation

Intemperance is when you can't do anything half way, or hold yourself back. You might describe your inability to eat a single slice of cake — instead, gobbling the whole thing — as intemperance. When someone isn't able to temper — or moderate — his actions, he is at risk of intemperance. Your uncle shows intemperance when he yells furiously at everyone around him every time he feels angry, and your sister's intemperance might come out in her terrible shopping habit. The opposite of intemperance is moderation. The Latin root word, intemperantia, means "immoderation or excess," and was originally used in English to describe the weather.

Example Sentences

As evidence of Mr. Kitman’s prodigious research into Washington’s intemperance, he cited a mention that the general had gained 28 pounds during the war, which lasted more than seven years.

From New York Times • Jun. 29, 2023

Usually such a judgment is the result of hyperbole and intemperance.

From Washington Post • May 2, 2022

Some spats are sparked by the jealousy of older moderates; others by the intemperance of younger progressives.

From Salon • Aug. 6, 2019

As reformers made progress against ills like intemperance, they increasingly saw the moral blindness and cruelty of slavery as the greatest and most intractable obstacles to American improvement.

From Textbooks • Jan. 18, 2018

I was there—on the very rim of our age— when my mother’s cataclysmic intemperance, as you well know, catapulted me into the fever of contemporary existence.

From "A Confederacy of Dunces" by John Kennedy Toole