temperance
noun
- cardinal virtue of control over excess
Wiktionary
Pronunciation: /ˈtɛmpəɹəns/
name
Etymology: From temperance. A virtue name first used by Puritans in the 16th century.
- A female given name from English.
- The fourteenth trump or major arcana card in most traditional Tarot decks.
noun
Etymology: 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.
- Habitual moderation in regard to the indulgence of the natural appetites and passions; restrained or moderate indulgence.
“temperance in eating and drinking”
“temperance in the indulgence of joy”
- Moderation, and sometimes abstinence, in respect to using intoxicating liquors.
“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.”
“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.”
- Moderation of passion; calmness.
“[…] in the verie Torrent, Tempeſt, and (as I may ſay) the Whirle-winde of Paſſion, you muſt acquire and beget a Temperance that may giue it Smoothneſſe.”
“Enough, you stand a traitor by my hearth, / And yet I draw not! Sir, I cannot pledge / This temperance long; the path of safety’s there.”
- State with regard to heat or cold; temperature.
“It [the climate] must needs be of subtle, tender, and delicate temperance.”