Moderatum

Moderatum is a Latin adjective meaning moderately, restrained, or tempered. It is the neuter singular form of moderatus, from moderare, “to moderate or regulate.” In Latin, moderatum can function as a participle or as an adjective agreeing with neuter nouns; typical constructions include moderatum tempus (a moderated time) or consilium moderatum (a restrained plan).

In philosophical and rhetorical Latin, the term occurs in discussions of temperance and proportion, and it is closely related to moderatio, the virtue of moderation, as well as to moderatus in the sense of restrained action. In medieval and early modern scholastic literature, moderatum appears in statements describing passions or appetites that should be kept within bounds by reason; the concept of moderation was central to ethical treatises and to the Christian virtue of temperance.

As a linguistic form, moderatum is chiefly of interest to scholars of Latin morphology and philology, rather than as a technical term in modern disciplines. In English-language scholarship moderatum is rarely used as an independent lexical item; it is typically encountered within translations of Latin passages, glosses, or discussions of Latin style.

Related terms include moderatio (moderation), moderator (one who moderates), and the modern Italian musical tempo marking moderato, which shares the same semantic field of tempo or degree of speed albeit via a different linguistic route.