hair shirt
a garment of coarse haircloth, worn next to the skin as a penance by ascetics and penitents.
self-imposed punishment, suffering, sacrifice, or penance.
Origin of hair shirt
1Words Nearby hair shirt
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024
How to use hair shirt in a sentence
Had she not openly asserted her belief that he wore a hair shirt and scourged himself in private?
The Pit Town Coronet, Volume II (of 3) | Charles James WillsEngland, apparently with a sigh of relief, lays aside her hair shirt, and proves that she has been wearing a silk vest under it.
English Costume | Dion Clayton CalthropThey found under his outer garments a hair shirt, and then they were half convinced he must have been a godly man.
Curiosities of Christian History | Croake JamesOn the same day he had put on a hair shirt, and he had never since removed either the one or the other.
The Fifth Queen Crowned | Ford Madox FordHe had left Petrograd dressed as a pilgrim, with hair-shirt and staff complete, and as such he posed to everybody.
The Minister of Evil | William Le Queux
British Dictionary definitions for hair shirt
a shirt made of haircloth worn next to the skin as a penance
a secret trouble or affliction
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Other Idioms and Phrases with hair shirt
A self-imposed punishment or penance, as in I apologized a dozen times—do you want me to wear a hair shirt forever? This term, mentioned from the 13th century on, alludes to wearing a coarse, scratchy hair shirt, the practice of religious ascetics. Its figurative use dates from the mid-1800s.
The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
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