temperature
n. C / Un. a measure of how hot or cold something is. You usually read it in degrees, like Celsius or Fahrenheit. If a doctor says you have a temperature, it means you have a fever.
n. the measured degree of heat or cold of an object, environment, or living body. In everyday medical contexts, it frequently refers to an abnormally high body heat indicating illness.
The temperature outside is dropping fast tonight.
The recipe requires the oven to reach a specific temperature before you put the cake in to bake.
Global ocean temperatures have risen steadily over the past century, fundamentally altering marine ecosystems and accelerating the melting of polar ice caps.
Borrowed from Latin temperātūra (cf. also French température), from the past participle stem of tempero (“to temper”).
Often takes the preposition 'of' when specifying the object measured; the phrase 'running a temperature' is an informal idiom for having a fever.