tempering
noun, verb
tempering is a noun meaning “The act by which something is tempered” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled T-E-M-P-E-R-I-N-G and has 3 syllables, and it appears about once in every 3 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of tempering is temperings.
What does tempering mean?
noun
- 1
The act by which something is tempered.
- 2
A non-plastic material, such as sand, added to clay to prevent shrinkage and cracking during drying or firing; temper.
verb
- 1
present participle and gerund of temper
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce tempering?
Tempering has 3 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Forms of tempering
- temperings plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is tempering?
Tempering appears about once in every 3 million words in written English, the 51,738th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Tempering in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense heat treatment of a metal:
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.