English 'tempo' is an Italian borrowing meaning 'time' applied to musical speed, from Latin 'tempus' (time, season), likely from PIE *temp- (to stretch) — time conceived as a span stretched between two points.
The speed at which a passage of music is played, or more generally, the pace or rate of activity.
From Italian 'tempo' (time, also musical speed), from Latin 'tempus' (time, season, period). Latin 'tempus' is thought to derive from PIE *temp- (to stretch, to span), reflecting time as a stretched or extended duration — a span pulled across experience rather than a series of points. The same root gives 'temporal' (relating to time), 'contemporary' (stretching together in time), 'tense' (in grammar), and possibly 'temple' (the side of the head — interpreted by some as where the pulse of time is felt). The word entered English as a musical term in the late seventeenth century and expanded to
Latin 'tempus' gave English two completely different words spelled 'temple': the temple of the head (the flat area beside the eye) comes from 'tempus' in its anatomical sense (the thin, temporal bone), while the temple as a place of worship comes from a different Latin word, 'templum' (sacred precinct), which may itself derive from 'tempus' in the sense of a marked-off time or space.