Browse or find a wordSearch by idea, purpose, familiarity, setting, or landing.
Be more particular
temperate
TEM-pur-it
- 01Understand
- 02Hear
- 03Distinguish
- 04See it used
- 05Choose how it lands
Measured and self-controlled rather than extreme.
It praises restraint as control rather than as timidity, which is the difference most people miss.
Mild suggests there is not much force there in the first place. Temperate says the force is there and is being held at a chosen level.
work“Her temperate answer to a rude email is the reason that account still exists.”
public life“The temperate speech did more damage than the furious one, because it could be quoted.”
thought“I wrote something temperate and sent something else, and I knew which was which at the time.”
A colleague has drafted a furious reply to a supplier who blamed your team in a shared channel, and asks what you think.
Meaning held still: Correct the record in front of everyone without starting a public fight.
“Send the temperate version. It is the one they can quote back at us without it helping them.”
It lands as: Gives restraint a strategic reason, so it does not feel like backing down.
Tradeoff: Treating tone as tactics can leave a genuinely wronged colleague feeling unsupported.“Take out everything except the dates. The dates already say what you want to say.”
It lands as: Turns editing into one mechanical instruction they can follow while still angry.
Tradeoff: A reply stripped to facts reads as cold to onlookers who watched the accusation land.“One line. Parts arrived on the fourteenth.”
It lands as: The brevity itself says the accusation was not worth more than that.
Tradeoff: It settles the fact and lets the insult stand, which some people will read as accepting it.Watch for: Temperate is about control, not about agreement. A temperate sentence can refuse absolutely.
First met in The Cost of Being Clear. Saving keeps that example with the word.