ascetic
a person who dedicates their life to a pursuit of contemplative ideals and practices extreme self-denial or self-mortification for religious reasons.
a person who leads an austerely simple life, especially one who abstains from the normal pleasures of life or shuns material satisfaction.
(in the early Christian church) a monk; hermit.
relating to asceticism, the doctrine that one can reach a high spiritual state through the practice of extreme self-denial or self-mortification.
rigorously abstinent; austere: an ascetic existence.
exceedingly strict or severe in religious exercises or self-mortification.
Origin of ascetic
1Other words for ascetic
Opposites for ascetic
Other words from ascetic
- as·cet·i·cal·ly, adverb
- non·as·cet·ic, noun, adjective
- non·as·cet·i·cal, adjective
- non·as·cet·i·cal·ly, adverb
- pre·as·cet·ic, adjective
- pseu·do·as·cet·ic, adjective
- pseu·do·as·cet·i·cal, adjective
- pseu·do·as·cet·i·cal·ly, adverb
- un·as·cet·ic, adjective
- un·as·cet·i·cal·ly, adverb
Words that may be confused with ascetic
Words Nearby ascetic
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024
How to use ascetic in a sentence
By now, everyone who’s ever seen a Paul Schrader movie knows that he favors deep moral explorations, and often writes characters who are obsessed with routines and rituals, ascetics for better or worse.
Oscar Isaac Smolders in the Pensive Romantic Thriller The Card Counter | Stephanie Zacharek | September 2, 2021 | TimeIn that distorted state, it felt good to deprive myself, as if it were some ascetic form of self-mastery.
I thought that I’d wind up among the “enlightened,” a digital ascetic who prioritized attentiveness above all else.
Having carefully set up the circumstances of his narrative within a viscerally realistic place and time, he lets it all unfold with an almost ascetic sparseness of dialogue.
Winslet, Ronan have seaside rendezvous in ‘Ammonite’ | John Paul King | December 11, 2020 | Washington BladeNot surprisingly, this did not sit well with the ascetic early Christians.
Soyinka is a food and wine enthusiast, but he also sinks easily into a kind of ascetic mode and fasts regularly.
Nigeria’s Larger-Than-Life Nobel Laureate Chronicles a Fascinating Life | Chimamanda Adichie | August 9, 2014 | THE DAILY BEASTAn Arab legend has it that the intoxicating effects of hashish were discovered by an ascetic monk in 1155.
Maybe this is better than self-denying ascetic teenage subculture anarchism.
He works around an impossibly long and lean ideal, but never allows his work to grow ascetic and cold.
Balenciaga and Designer Nicolas Ghesquiere Split | Robin Givhan | November 5, 2012 | THE DAILY BEASTHis cowl was thrown back, revealing his pale, ascetic countenance and shaven head.
St. Martin's Summer | Rafael SabatiniTake him in repose, and he looked a lank ascetic who dreamed of a happy land where flagellation was a joy and pain a panacea.
You Never Know Your Luck, Complete | Gilbert ParkerIn appearance, Terry was an ill-adjusted compromise between an ascetic and a young man about town.
Mushroom Town | Oliver OnionsThe Nazarenes are archological and ascetic; the Dsseldorf school is insipid in a modern way, feeble, colourless, and sentimental.
The History of Modern Painting, Volume 1 (of 4) | Richard MutherHis philosophy had made him neither an ascetic nor an anchorite.
Mary Wollstonecraft | Elizabeth Robins Pennell
British Dictionary definitions for ascetic
/ (əˈsɛtɪk) /
a person who practises great self-denial and austerities and abstains from worldly comforts and pleasures, esp for religious reasons
(in the early Christian Church) a monk
rigidly abstinent or abstemious; austere
of or relating to ascetics or asceticism
intensely rigorous in religious austerities
Origin of ascetic
1Derived forms of ascetic
- ascetically, adverb
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
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