Deviations of the body temperature of homeothermic animals may be regulated or forced. A regulated change in core temperature is caused by a natural or synthetic compound that displaces the set-point temperature. A forced shift occurs when an excessive environmental or endogenous heat load, or heat sink, exceeds the body's capacity to thermoregulate but does not affect set-point. A fever is the paradigm of a regulated increase in body temperature, but the term fever has acquired a strict pathological definition over the past two decades. Consequently, other forms of nonpathological regulated elevations in body temperature--either forced or regulated vs. a forced temperature change, a confusion of terms has been created in the literature.