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Glite Dictionary
🎭 Unpredictable 🧠 Personality-based
temperamental

temperamental

1 6.3
About a person's usual mood or character
  • adjective
  • /ˌtɛmpəˈrɛmənˌtəl/
: temperamental
  • Children differ, however, in the strengths of their temperamental tendencies and capabilities.
  • temperamental individuality
  • temperamental tendencies
  • temperamental disposition

This this book, Raising Your Spirited Child by Mary Sheedy Karsinka is a really great place to start understanding your child's temperamental traits and also yours.

Examples

  • I think our differences are as much temperamental as they are doctrinal.

  • I'm too temperamental, too nervous.

    Garbo: Where Did You Go? (2024)

  • - You've always been a temperamental kid, Jimmy.

    Loser (1996)

  • Well, he's still temperamental, but let's risk it.

    Paradise, Hawaiian Style (1966)

  • Resilient youth appear to possess temperamental characteristics that elicit positive responses from people around them.

    Academic text (1996)

  • Geldings can be nearly as temperamental as stallions; so can mares.

    Fiction book (1998)

  • Bert is a kind of temperamental adolescent, big and brooding, who enjoys the combat of the courtroom.

    Fiction book (1994)

  • Issues of voice change, self-esteem, and peer approval contribute to their anxiety, often evidenced in their temperamental dispositions.

    Academic text (2014)

  • Behaviors that express children's temperamental individuality evoke characteristic responses from others.

    Academic text (1998)

  • Having always been a temperamental person, Maria expressed her feelings passionately and sometimes unpredictably.

Synonyms

dispositional
vstemperamental
1 7.4

Showing a person's usual mood, character or way of behaving

refers to being caused by a person's inherent nature rather than general tendency
volatile
vstemperamental
1 7.4

Having sudden unpredictable changes in feelings toward others

focuses on lasting traits based on inner nature rather than quick emotional swings
a bit switchy
vstemperamental
  • UK
9.2

Often changes mood or behavior quickly and without warning

means caused by a person's inner nature rather than casual unpredictability

Antonyms

stable
467 2.3

Not likely to change and stays steady over time

Compounds

temperamental car
1 5.6

A car that often does not start or breaks down

temperamental behavior
1 7.2

Sudden unpredictable mood changes that affect how a person acts

Surface Forms

temperamental positive

Morphology

temperamental = temperament (transparent) = temper + ment + al

The adjective is a regular formation from 'temperament' with '-al', so the relation to the base meaning is clear.

Etymology

Temperamental comes from temperament, which traces back to Latin temperare meaning 'to mix' or 'to balance'. Think of a person's temperament as their natural 'mix' of feelings and behaviour, so temperamental relates to that inner disposition.