Etymologically
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intemperans

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Pronunciation

  • Classical: [ɪnˈtɛm.pɛ.rãːs][1]
  • Ecclesiastical: [inˈtɛm.pe.rans][1]

Forms

intemperāns (genitive intemperantis, comparative intemperantior, superlative intemperantissimus, adverb intemperanter); third-declension one-termination adjective[1]

Etymology

It is from Latin in- (“not”) + temperāns (“moderate”), the present participle of temperō (“to moderate”).[2][3][4] De Vaan derives that verb from tempus, from Proto-Indo-European *temp-os (“stretch”): its sense to restrain shows a shift from stretching to measuring.[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Köbler dates it from Cicero.[4] In the OLD's earliest quotation Plautus has someone called headstrong, not modest, for draining what he could from the house.[2]

Semantic evolution

It is lacking self-control, unrestrained, as in Plautus.[2] It is above all licentious, lewd: the Rhetorica ad Herennium imagines calling Hippolytus licentious and an adulterer.[2] Of things it is not well tempered, extreme: Seneca asks what is more extreme in climate than Corsica.[2] Apuleius has an immoderate mixture.[6] The TLL finds the ablative in ⟨-ī⟩ from Livy, in ⟨-e⟩ only in Apuleius, and the comparative from Livy.[3]

Timeline

  • c. 250–184 BC – Plautus of a headstrong spendthrift.[2][4]
  • 81–43 BC – Cicero uses it.[4]
  • 4 BC–65 AD – Seneca of Corsica's climate.[2][4]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. Lacking self-control, unrestrained, intemperate.[2][6][1]
  2. Licentious, incontinent, lewd.[2][6][1]
  3. Not well tempered, extreme.[2][6]

Word family

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ a b Thesaurus linguae Latinae (1900–), Leipzig: Teubner; Berlin: De Gruyter; open-access ed., Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften
  4. ^ a b c d e Köbler, Gerhard (2010), Lateinisches Abkunfts- und Wirkungswörterbuch für Altertum und Mittelalter, online ed., koeblergerhard.de
  5. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
  6. ^ a b c d Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press