distemper
noun · verb
Simple meaning
A viral disease of animals, such as dogs and cats, characterised by fever, coughing and catarrh.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
dihstehmperSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
dɪsˈtɛmpɚ
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
veterinary medicinepathology
A viral disease of animals, such as dogs and cats, characterised by fever, coughing and catarrh.
Any of various infectious viral diseases of animals
A painting created with paint that is made by mixing the pigments with water and a binder
countable
A painting produced with this kind of paint.
A glue-based paint.
verb
To derange the functions of, whether bodily, mental, or spiritual; to disorder; to disease.
To deprive of temper or moderation; to disturb; to ruffle; to make disaffected, ill-humoured, or malignant.
To temper or mix unduly; to make disproportionate; to change the due proportions of.
To intoxicate.
Paint with distemper
To mix (colours) in the way of distemper.
Word at a Glance
- Frequency
- Rare
- Formality
- Technical
- Typical Use
- Varies by meaning
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
A viral disease of young dogs characterized by high fever and respiratory inflammation.
An acute bacterial disease of horses characterized by inflammation of the mucous membranes.
Related Words
Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.