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Excessive indulgence of the appetites; especially, excessive indulgence of lust; intemperance; sensuality; habitual lewdness. Oppose . . . debauchery by temperance. Sprat.

To impair the strength of; to weaken; to enfeeble; as, to debilitate the body by intemperance. Various ails debilitate the mind. Jenyns. The debilitated frame of Mr. Bertram was exhausted by this last effort. Sir W. Scott.

fatal; productive of serious evil; mischievous; pernicious; -- often with of or to; as, intemperance is destructive of health; evil examples are destructive to the morals of youth. Time's destructive power. Wordsworth. Destructive distillation. See Distillation. -- Destructive sorties ( (Logic), a process of reasoning…

h with means, opportunities, and the like; to render competent for; to empower; to endow. Temperance gives Nature her full play, and enables her to exert herself in all her force and vigor. Addison.

dulgence of the appetite; transgression of proper moderation in natural gratifications; intemperance; dissipation. Be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess. Eph. v. 18. Thy desire . . . leads to no excess That reaches blame. Milton.

advantageous or evil consequence or effect; as, the fruits of labor, of self-denial, of intemperance. The fruit of rashness. Shak. What I obtained was the fruit of no bargain. Burke. They shall eat the fruit of their doings. Is. iii 10. The fruits of this education became visible. Macaulay.

n; prevalence or influence; as, the growth of trade; the growth of power; the growth of intemperance. Idle weeds are fast in growth. Shak.

Want of sobriety, moderation, or calmness; intemperance; drunkenness.

Intemperance. [Obs.]

e haditation of thy throne. Ps. ixxxix. 11. The king-becoming graces, As justice, verity, temperance, stableness, . . . I have no relish of them. Shak.

Addison. Somebody there of his own level. Swift. Be the fair level of thy actions laid As temperance wills and prudence may persuade. Prior.

remes or excess; moderation; measure. But to speak in a mean, the virtue of prosperity is temperance; the virtue of adversity is fortitude. Bacon. There is a mean in all things. Dryden. The extremes we have mentioned, between which the wellinstracted Christian holds the mean, are correlatives. I. Taylor.…

Moderation; temperance. [Obs.] Hooker.

stom obtains of going to the seashore in summer. Sobriety hath by use obtained to signify temperance in drinking. Jer. Taylor. The Theodosian code, several hundred years after Justinian's time, did obtain in the western parts of Europe. Baker.

lived when learning was at its highest pitch. Addison. The exact pitch, or limits, where temperance ends. Sharp.

minous plants, or their seeds, as beans, pease, etc. If all the world Should, in a pet of temperance, feed on pulse. Milton.

To restrain; to control; to check. Being once chafed, he can not Be reined again to temperance. Shak. To rein in or rein up, to check the speed of, or cause to stop, by drawing the reins.

Habitual soberness or temperance as to the use of spirituous liquors; as, a man of sobriety. Public sobriety is a relative duty. Blackstone.

Hereditary character, quality, or disposition. Intemperance and lust breed diseases, which, propogated, spoil the strain of nation. Tillotson.

Temperance.