intemperance

/ɪnˈtɛmpərəns/

Other forms: intemperances

Intemperance is when you can't do anything half way, or hold yourself back. You might describe your inability to eat a single slice of cake — instead, gobbling the whole thing — as intemperance.

When someone isn't able to temper — or moderate — his actions, he is at risk of intemperance. Your uncle shows intemperance when he yells furiously at everyone around him every time he feels angry, and your sister's intemperance might come out in her terrible shopping habit. The opposite of intemperance is moderation. The Latin root word, intemperantia, means "immoderation or excess," and was originally used in English to describe the weather.

Definitions of intemperance

1. noun

   excess in action and immoderate indulgence of bodily appetites, especially in passion or indulgence
   “the intemperance of their language”

   synonyms: decadence, intemperateness, self-indulgence

   types:

   fling, spree

   a brief indulgence of your impulses

   dissipation, dissolution, licentiousness, looseness, profligacy

   dissolute indulgence in sensual pleasure

   jag

   a bout of drinking or drug taking

   spending spree

   a brief period of extravagant spending

   type of:

   humoring, indulgence, indulging, pampering

   the act of indulging or gratifying a desire
2. noun

   consumption of alcoholic drinks
   synonyms: intemperateness

   types:

   boozing, crapulence, drink, drinking, drunkenness

   the act of drinking alcoholic beverages to excess

   drinking bout

   a long period of drinking

   type of:

   vice

   a specific form of evildoing
3. noun

   the quality of being intemperate
   antonyms:

   temperance

   the trait of avoiding excesses

   types:

   gluttony

   habitual eating to excess

   greediness, hoggishness, piggishness

   an excessive desire for food

   edacity, esurience, rapaciousness, rapacity, voraciousness, voracity

   extreme gluttony

   type of:

   unrestraint

   the quality of lacking restraint