Temp

How to spell temp

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce temp

What does temp mean?

1. nounA person employed on a short-term basis, often through an agency.
2. verbTo work as a temporary employee, usually through an agency.
3. nounAn informal shortening of temperature, the degree of heat of something.

Temp in a sentence

• noun

  The agency sent a temp to cover the receptionist's leave.

• verb

  She decided to temp for a few months before settling into a permanent role.

• noun

  Check the oven temp before sliding in the tray of bread.

• noun

  During the busy season the firm hires a temp for the front desk.

• verb

  Many graduates temp at offices while job hunting.

• noun

  The recipe says to bring the butter to room temp first.

Where does temp come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This is a clipped, informal word, and which longer word it shortens depends on the sense. As a name for a short-term worker, it is a clipping of 'temporary', which descends from the Latin temporarius, meaning 'lasting only for a time', built on tempus, the Latin word for 'time'. As a casual word for how hot or cold something is, it is instead a clipping of 'temperature', which comes through Latin temperatura from temperare, meaning 'to mix in due proportion' or 'to regulate'. Both clippings rose in popularity in the twentieth century, when brisk abbreviations became common in offices and everyday speech. Because the full forms share neither root nor era of borrowing, the tidy four-letter spelling is the only thing the two meanings truly have in common.

How the word is built

• clipped form of either temporary (tempor- 'time'
• -ary) or temperature (temper- 'mix/regulate'
• -ature)