About "temper"

Question

"sales have been lagging for months as shoppers temper their spending."in this sentence,what does "temper" here mean?just decline?

Philip · Accepted Answer

temper: to moderate (use less of, for example).

I have a friend who is the wife of a minister, neither of whom ever touch a droup of alchohol. She refuses to join the
WCTU (Women's Christian Temperance Union), because they do not preach temperance, but rather abstinence. [She doesn't want to belong to a group that doesn't understand the meaning of its name.]

Anonymous · Answer

Specifically in that case, the sentence is saying that shoppers are changing their spending habits (how much they spend). They are doing this to match the recent changes in the economy (bad economy = people don't spend as much).
It's common to think of swords as being "tempered." A blacksmith tempers a metal sword by heating it up and then cooling it slowly (resulting in a "softer" sword).
M-W defines temper as ":to dilute, qualify, or soften (any thing) by the addition or influence of something else"
...So a tempered sword is made softer (so it doesn't break from britleness; it qualifies as a good sword)
A shopper's tempered spending is moderated (so they don't go into debt)
...also, a person can have a temper which you seemed to know already. This usage comes from the above definition. A person who has a short temper does not have the ability to influence his emotional state (it is assumed that "emotional state" is being refered to in these cases). "A person with a temper" describes someone who has a temper problem, the word problem is omited here, and always implies that they easily become hostile or upset.

Anonymous · Answer

WCTU defines temperance as moderate use of all things good, and total abstinence from all things questionable or harmful. There is NO doubt that alcohol harms.

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