ascetic

[ uh-set-ik ]

noun

1. a person who dedicates their life to a pursuit of contemplative ideals and practices extreme self-denial or self-mortification for religious reasons.
2. a person who leads an austerely simple life, especially one who abstains from the normal pleasures of life or shuns material satisfaction.
3. (in the early Christian church) a monk; hermit.

   Synonyms: cenobite, recluse, anchorite

adjective

1. relating to asceticism, the doctrine that one can reach a high spiritual state through the practice of extreme self-denial or self-mortification.
2. rigorously abstinent; austere:

   an ascetic existence.

   Synonyms: plain, frugal, strict

   Antonyms: self-indulgent

3. exceedingly strict or severe in religious exercises or self-mortification.

   Synonyms: fanatic

ascetic

/ əˈsɛtɪk /

noun

1. a person who practises great self-denial and austerities and abstains from worldly comforts and pleasures, esp for religious reasons
2. (in the early Christian Church) a monk

adjective

1. rigidly abstinent or abstemious; austere
2. of or relating to ascetics or asceticism
3. intensely rigorous in religious austerities

Derived Forms

• asˈcetically, adverb

Other Words From

• 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

Word History and Origins

Origin of ascetic¹

First recorded in 1640–50; from Greek askētikós “subject to rigorous exercise, hardworking,” equivalent to askē- ( ascesis ) + -tikos adjective suffix; -tic

Word History and Origins

Origin of ascetic¹

C17: from Greek askētikos, from askētēs, from askein to exercise

Example Sentences

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.

From Time

In that distorted state, it felt good to deprive myself, as if it were some ascetic form of self-mastery.

From Outside Online

I thought that I’d wind up among the “enlightened,” a digital ascetic who prioritized attentiveness above all else.

From Outside Online

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.

From Washington Blade

Not surprisingly, this did not sit well with the ascetic early Christians.

From The Daily Beast

Soyinka is a food and wine enthusiast, but he also sinks easily into a kind of ascetic mode and fasts regularly.

From The Daily Beast

An Arab legend has it that the intoxicating effects of hashish were discovered by an ascetic monk in 1155.

From The Daily Beast

Maybe this is better than self-denying ascetic teenage subculture anarchism.

From The Daily Beast

He works around an impossibly long and lean ideal, but never allows his work to grow ascetic and cold.

From The Daily Beast

His cowl was thrown back, revealing his pale, ascetic countenance and shaven head.

From Project Gutenberg

Take him in repose, and he looked a lank ascetic who dreamed of a happy land where flagellation was a joy and pain a panacea.

From Project Gutenberg

In appearance, Terry was an ill-adjusted compromise between an ascetic and a young man about town.

From Project Gutenberg

The Nazarenes are archological and ascetic; the Dsseldorf school is insipid in a modern way, feeble, colourless, and sentimental.

From Project Gutenberg

His philosophy had   made him neither an ascetic nor an anchorite.

From Project Gutenberg

Related Words

• austere
• disciplined