The paper focuses on the main temperature adjectives in Russian and Swedish, which are analysed and
compared to each other on the basis of their combinability with nouns. Each of the two linguistic systems
is strongly rooted in human experience of temperature. First, temperature attributes are chosen relatively
to several temperature values or parameters, that are important and salient for humans and have only very
approximate physical correlates. Second, physical objects differ considerably as to whether their
remperature properties are ever registered by humans, or considered as important and worth mentioning,
primarily depending on their function in the human life.