temperament

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   A person's usual manner of thinking, behaving or reacting.

   President Taft did not have the temperament either to dominate or to work with his Congress.

2. 2
   noun

   A moderate and proportionable mixture of elements or ingredients in a compound; the condition in which elements are mixed in their proper proportions.

   If I will aske meere Philosophers, what the soule is, I shall finde amongst them, that will tell me, it is nothing, but the temperament and harmony, and just and equall composition of the Elements in the body, which produces all those faculties which we ascribe to the soule […]

3. 3
   noun

   an adjustment of the intervals (as in tuning a keyboard instrument) so that the scale can be used to play in different keys

4. 4
   noun

   your usual mood

5. 5
   noun

   excessive emotionalism or irritability and excitability (especially when displayed openly)

6. 6
   noun

   A tendency to become irritable or angry.

7. 7
   noun

   The altering of certain intervals from their correct values in order to improve the moving from key to key.

8. 8
   noun

   Individual differences in behavior that are biologically based and are relatively independent of learning, system of values and attitudes.

Etymology

Inherited from Middle English temperament, borrowed from Middle French tempérament, from Latin temperāmentum.