Definition of "temperate" []

• Exercising moderation and self-restraint: learned to be temperate in eating and drinking. (adjective)
• Moderate in degree or quality; restrained: temperate criticism. (adjective)
• Characterized by moderate temperatures, weather, or climate; neither hot nor cold. (adjective)
• Biology Of or relating to a virus that infects bacterial cells but rarely causes lysis: temperate bacteriophages. (adjective)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "I would like your temperate drinker to pause, and reflect upon the fact, that the quantity of brandy or rum that he took at a drink, when he commenced this downhill course, has been gradually increased; so that in the second year, what had been quite sufficient to please his palate and produce all the desired effects in the first, was then insipidly small; and more so in the third year, if, mayhap, he could with any decency lay claim to the title of _temperate drinker_ so long."
• "The speleologists have been so busy up here in what we call the temperate zone that they haven't had a chance or the inclination to take their lights any deeper."
• "Who will indulge in what he calls the temperate use, flattering himself that he can control his appetite, when thousands, who have boasted of _self-control_, have found themselves, ere they were aware, within the coil of a serpent whose touch is poison, and whose sting is death?"