8 uses
(click/touch triangles for details)
1 —4 uses as in:
short-tempered
Definition
having a typical mood or temperament — often in reference to how easily one is angered
- The Pyncheon Elm, throughout its great circumference, was all alive, and full of the morning sun and a sweet-tempered little breeze, which lingered within this verdant sphere, and set a thousand leafy tongues a-whispering all at once.Chapter 19 — Alice's Posies (4% in)
- Her scowl,—as the world, or such part of it as sometimes caught a transitory glimpse of her at the window, wickedly persisted in calling it,—her scowl had done Miss Hepzibah a very ill office, in establishing her character as an ill-tempered old maid; nor does it appear improbable that, by often gazing at herself in a dim looking-glass, and perpetually encountering her own frown with its ghostly sphere, she had been led to interpret the expression almost as unjustly as the world did.Chapter 2 — The Little Shop-Window (35% in)
- It might have lasted longer, but that his eyes happened, soon afterwards, to rest on the face of the old Puritan, who, out of his dingy frame and lustreless canvas, was looking down on the scene like a ghost, and a most ill-tempered and ungenial one.Chapter 7 — The Guest (80% in)
- It is, perhaps, true that the public had something reasonably to complain of in her deportment; but towards Clifford she was neither ill-tempered nor unkind, nor felt less warmth of heart than always, had it been possible to make it reach him.Chapter 15 — The Scowl and Smile (5% in)
There are no more uses of "tempered" flagged with this meaning in The House of the Seven Gables.
Typical Usage
(best examples)
? —4 uses
exact meaning not specified
- And who but a blood relation, that couldn't help himself, I ask you, would take in that awful-tempered old maid, and that dreadful Clifford?Chapter 19 — Alice's Posies (34% in)
- These sour-tempered folks are mostly handy at business, and know pretty well what they are about.Chapter 3 — The First Customer (40% in)
- He had no right to be a martyr; and, beholding him so fit to be happy and so feeble for all other purposes, a generous, strong, and noble spirit would, methinks, have been ready to sacrifice what little enjoyment it might have planned for itself,—it would have flung down the hopes, so paltry in its regard,—if thereby the wintry blasts of our rude sphere might come tempered to such a man.Chapter 7 — The Guest (65% in)
- Anon, as age came stealing, like a sad twilight, back over his figure, you would have felt tempted to hold an argument with Destiny, and affirm, that either this being should not have been made mortal, or mortal existence should have been tempered to his qualities.Chapter 9 — Clifford and Phoebe (57% in)
There are no more uses of "tempered" in The House of the Seven Gables.
Typical Usage
(best examples)