temperment

== English == === Etymology === Perhaps influenced by analysis as temper +‎ -ment. (Attested since the 1470s.) === Pronunciation === (US) IPA(key): /ˈtɛm.pɚ.mənt/ === Noun === temperment (plural temperments) Misconstruction of temperament. 1975-1976, Brian Lederer, in a letter printed in Nomination of an Associate Judge: Hearing Before the Committee on the District of Columbia, United States Senate, Ninety-fourth Congress, First Session, on Nomination of Charles W. Halleck to be an Associate Judge of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia (reappointment), December 3, 1975, page 166: What is disturbing to me is not the appearance per se but the attempt to cloak it as a non-political statement on judicial temperment. If judicial temperment were really the concern of the U.S. Attorney's office, they would provide the Committee with a full picture. Every lawyer who practices in D.C. Superior Court knows there are judges whose judicial temperment cries out for investigation […] The nub of the matter is not Judge Halleck's judicial temperment but the United States Attorney's dislike of the legal rulings of the judge. === Further reading === The Oxford English Dictionary: Being a Corrected Re-issue […] (1933), T-U: "Temperament (te·mpĕrămĕnt), sb. Also 5 temperment. [...] 1471 Ripley Comp. Alch. I xviii. in Ashm. Theat. Chem. Brit. (1652) 133 For soe to temperment ys brought our Stone, And Natures contraryose, fower be made one." Google Books Ngram Viewer: temperment is about 1/300th as common as temperament