Temperance Meaning
/ˈtɛmpəɹəns/Definition, CEFR level C1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
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Definition
nounHabitual moderation in regard to the indulgence of the natural appetites and passions; restrained or moderate indulgence.
nounModeration, and sometimes abstinence, in respect to using intoxicating liquors.
Sentence Examples
Health coexists with temperance.
Temperance is the best physic.
We ought to look to temperance, the leader of all virtue.
Synonyms & Antonyms
Synonyms:
Antonyms:
None
CEFR Practice Quiz
The doctor recommended ____ in alcohol consumption to avoid liver damage.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The movement encouraged ____ and self-control, especially regarding the consumption of expensive and harmful substances today.
Word Origin & History
From Anglo-Norman temperance, from Latin temperantia (“moderation, sobriety, discretion, self-control”), from temperans, present participle of temperare (“to moderate”). See temper. English equivalent temper + -ance.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"Who did begin their Feaſtes with Prayers; continue them with Temperance, and Sobrietie; eating no more then would ſuffice their hunger; drinking no more then would quench and ſatisfie their thirſt […]"
— 1628, William Prynne, Healthes Sicknesse. Or, a compendious and briefe Discourse; prouing the Drinking, and Pledging of Healthes, to be Sinfull […] , London: Augustine Matthews, page 22:
"On these occasions I have noticed such a dreamy, vacant expression in his eyes, that I might have suspected him of being addicted to the use of some narcotic, had not the temperance and cleanliness of his whole life forbidden such a notion."
— 1887, A[rthur] Conan Doyle, “A Study in Scarlet”, in Beeton’s Christmas Annual, London; New York, N.Y.: Ward, Lock & Co., part I (Being a reprint from the reminiscences of John H. Watson, M.D., […]), chapter II (The Science of Deduction), page 8:
"But there was no one to shake Nero into temperance. He had affairs, drank tremendously, raised taxes in the provinces to pay for his indulgences, and started once again to hold the infamous treason trials as Caligula had done."
— 2007, Susan Wise Bauer, “The Problem of Succession”, in The History of the Ancient World, New York: W. W. Norton & Company, page 729:
"Another error, as it seems to me, into which the old reformers fell, was the position that all habitual drunkards were utterly incorrigible, and therefore must be turned adrift and damned without remedy in order that the grace of temperance might abound, to the temperate then, and to all mankind some hundreds of years thereafter."
— 1842 February 22, Abraham Lincoln, “Address Before the Springfield Washingtonian Temperance Society”, in Arthur Brooks Lapsley, editor, The Papers and Writings of Abraham Lincoln:
"So now the frauds reckoned they was out of danger, and they begun to work the villages again. ¶ First they done a lecture on temperance; but they didn't make enough for them both to get drunk on."
— 1884 December 10, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], chapter XXXI, in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: (Tom Sawyer’s Comrade) […], London: Chatto & Windus, […], →OCLC, page 314:
Explore More C1 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
The doctor recommended ____ in alcohol consumption to avoid liver damage.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The movement encouraged ____ and self-control, especially regarding the consumption of expensive and harmful substances today.