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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
ascetic
adjective
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ They belonged to an ascetic Jewish sect called the Essenes
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ At the same time, however, the Church also honored an ascetic ideal.
▪ Counterbalancing this ascetic wunderkind is his brother, Charles Solomon.
▪ Like the ascetic movement of which it was an outgrowth, monasticism had its origins in the Middle East.
▪ Louis became an extremely devout and ascetic man.
▪ Other forms of holiness - that of the virgin and the ascetic - were assimilated to martyrdom.
▪ The church itself became a two-class system: the ascetic monasteries versus the more worldly regular clergy.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Ascetic

Ascetic \As*cet"ic\, n. In the early church, one who devoted himself to a solitary and contemplative life, characterized by devotion, extreme self-denial, and self-mortification; a hermit; a recluse; hence, one who practices extreme rigor and self-denial in religious things.

I am far from commending those ascetics that take up their quarters in deserts.
--Norris.

Ascetic theology, the science which treats of the practice of the theological and moral virtues, and the counsels of perfection.
--Am. Cyc.

Ascetic

Ascetic \As*cet"ic\a. [Gr. ?, fr. ? to exercise, to practice gymnastics.] Extremely rigid in self-denial and devotions; austere; severe.

The stern ascetic rigor of the Temple discipline.
--Sir W. Scott.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
ascetic

1640s, from Greek asketikos "rigorously self-disciplined, laborious," from asketes "monk, hermit," earlier "one who practices an art or trade," from askein "to exercise, train," originally "to train for athletic competition, practice gymnastics, exercise."

ascetic

"one of the early Christians who retired to the desert to live solitary lives of meditation and prayer," 1670s, from ascetic (adj.).

Wiktionary
ascetic

a. Of or relating to ascetics; characterized by rigorous self-denial or self-discipline; austere; abstinent; involving a withholding of physical pleasure. n. One who is devoted to the practice of self-denial, either through seclusion or stringent abstinence.

WordNet
ascetic

n. practices self denial as spiritual discipline [syn: abstainer]

ascetic
  1. adj. pertaining to or characteristic of an ascetic or the practice of rigorous self-discipline; "ascetic practices" [syn: ascetical]

  2. practicing great self-denial; "Be systematically ascetic...do...something for no other reason than that you would rather not do it"- William James; "a desert nomad's austere life"; "a spartan diet"; "a spartan existence" [syn: ascetical, austere, spartan]

Usage examples of "ascetic".

He there passed through the usual anchoretic battles with demons, and by prayer and ascetic exercise attained a rare power over nature.

I say that the main Christian impulse cannot be described as asceticism, even in the ascetics.

In the reign of Constantine, the Ascetics fled from a profane and degenerate world, to perpetual solitude, or religious society.

Oh, there was a holiday, of course, and even the gaunt, Gaullist figure of Pere Noel, an ascetic and intellectualized version of Santa.

A tall man, broad-shouldered, slender at hip, a man with slanting brows, pointed, lobeless ears, high cheekbones and crimson, moody eyes in a dead white ascetic face.

Lydiat, of ascetic principles--of almost superhuman renitence, where the affections are involved--and of a determined bias respecting his mission in life--is still standing on the forecastle, with the Novum Organum opened at the same place, and his face still full of thought.

This was acknowledged also by the Panchen Lama when he emphatically declared that he would exercise his office only under the superior authority of the Dalai Lama, whose wisdom and ascetic life plainly predestined him for that high function.

Now his blue eyes looked bright and idealistic in his sunburned, ascetic face, as he climbed down to cover me with another one of those rustless belly-guns he seemed to have got a bushel of somewhere.

He struck out across Quien Sabe, his face, the face of an ascetic, lean, brown, infinitely sad, set toward the Mission church.

A green book hardly larger than my hand and no thicker than my index finger appeared to be a collection of devotions, full of enameled pictures of ascetic pantocrators and hypostases with black halos and gemlike robes.

See now, I said well, thou art the very fellow of the sages of Chincholi: a city, into which on a day there came a certain sanctimonious ascetic, called Pinga, from the colour of his hair.

There was something ascetic in her look, which was augmented by the extreme plainness of a straight-skirted, black, stuff dress, a starched linen collar, hair combed away from the temples, and the nun-like ornament of a string of ebony beads and a crucifix.

I thought of becoming a sannyasi, an ascetic who lives by begging, though I fear that would disappoint my family.

In January 1510, Chaitanya suddenly took it into his head to become a Sanyasi or ascetic, and received initiation at the hands of Keshab Bharati of Katwa.

As the ascetic tradition strengthened in early Christianity, it is not surprising to find this having an impact on scribal changes to the text.