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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
austere
adjective
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADVERB
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▪ These pictures, Roland considered, seemed somehow more real as well as more austere, because they were photographs.
▪ Today his message is more austere, more profound and more iconoclastic than ever.
▪ Their dress seemed more austere, both in its cut and in the absence of embellishment.
▪ The room is much as he imagined it would be, though perhaps even more austere.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ a cold, austere woman
▪ an austere style of painting
▪ Students ate in an austere hall built by New England Puritans.
▪ The crematorium chapel was cold and austere.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ August was reserved for Henderson House, where Grandmother Robinson presided with austere benevolence.
▪ Before the coarse brown fabric hung an austere gibbet, constructed of two weathered wooden beams.
▪ Greene chose the life of an émigré, had an austere dedication to the life of the writer, avoided all publicity.
▪ He later developed austere personal habits, his brother recalled.
▪ It's a very austere movie, filmed largely in semi-darkness and featuring a morose baroque soundtrack.
▪ On the opposite wall, a print was mounted; an austere graphic design, white and grey to match.
▪ Then she would do housework, but it was such an austere cottage that there was hardly anything to do.
▪ These strict and prudish ideals were those of the austere Hejaz merchants.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Austere

Austere \Aus*tere"\, [F. aust[`e]re, L. austerus, fr. Gr. ?, fr. ? to parch, dry. Cf. Sear.]

  1. Sour and astringent; rough to the state; having acerbity; as, an austere crab apple; austere wine.

  2. Severe in modes of judging, or living, or acting; rigid; rigorous; stern; as, an austere man, look, life.

    From whom the austere Etrurian virtue rose.
    --Dryden.

  3. Unadorned; unembellished; severely simple.

    Syn: Harsh; sour; rough; rigid; stern; severe; rigorous; strict.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
austere

early 14c., from Old French austere (Modern French austère) and directly from Latin austerus "dry, harsh, sour, tart," from Greek austeros "bitter, harsh," especially "making the tongue dry" (originally used of fruits, wines), metaphorically "austere, harsh," from PIE *saus- "dry" (cognates: Greek auos "dry," auein "to dry"). Use in English is figurative: "stern, severe, very simple." Related: Austerely.

Wiktionary
austere

a. 1 grim or severe in manner or appearance 2 Lacking trivial decoration; not extravagant or gaudy

WordNet
austere
  1. adj. severely simple; "a stark interior" [syn: severe, stark]

  2. of a stern or strict bearing or demeanor; forbidding in aspect; "an austere expression"; "a stern face" [syn: stern]

  3. 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: ascetic, ascetical, spartan]

Wikipedia
Austere (EDM group)

Austere is an anonymous, obscurantist electronic music group that has covered a wide variety of styles in their releases: Classical Minimalism, psybient, psychedelic ambient, ambient, dark ambient, drone, glitch-ambient, and downtempo-style drum and bass music, which out of deference to Coil they spell "musick." The group started working together in 1997, with their first release on 1 January 1998, and is loosely based in the Pacific Northwest in Portlandia, Oregon due to their connection to Sound-O-Mat Recordings which is located there.

The two members have lived in various places, such as New York City, NY; North Chatam UK, UK; Portlandia, OR; Seattle, WA; Brighton, UK and SF, CA amongst many more.

Their Classical Minimalism recordings: "Convergence", "Eco", "Pulse" and "Vox" all draw upon composer Steve Reich's Process Music approach, as defined by his 1968 manifesto " Music as a Gradual Process."

They have collaborated with a number of musicians/bands including Abstract Audio Systems ( New York City), In The Now ( Brighton, UK) and Stephen Philips, owner of Dark Duck Records.

They have contributed to videos and films: the soundtrack for The Thin Horizon, an independent film written, directed and produced by Michael Peters of Artifexwerks located in Forest Grove, Oregon; a track from the Dark Duck Records Drone Download Project was used Claude's Room, also an independent film. They have also contributed to several music videos, such as the Abandon video, and most recently, the Tiny Danser.

Austere's members have recorded solo works, as The Mystifying Oracle and Freq. Magnet. The latter has released three full CDs, a DVD, and a recent track on a Hypnos compilation CD.

Austere (EP)

Austere is an EP by the band Sparta. It was released in 2002 on DreamWorks Records. This was their first album, released just one year after the break-up of their former band At the Drive-In.

Austere (song)

"Austere" is the debut single by Welsh alternative rock band The Joy Formidable. It was originally released in August 2008 on 7" vinyl on the Another Music=Another Kitchen label. The song and band gained much exposure when YouTube removed a fan-made music video. An official video was put together featuring the band playing pass the parcel. The single was re-released for their debut album The Big Roar and a new video was made, featuring the band performing the song.

In a short review of the track The Times described it as "dreamy indie pop", and the track appeared on trailers for Channel 4's Skins.

Usage examples of "austere".

This was a measure designed to root out the Catholic heresy of Jansenism, which took a much more austere view of salvation than the acceptable norm, and which had adherents at high levels of the Parlements, especially in Paris.

Not content with her own private obsession she cast her husband in the role of Wolmar, the older, rather austere but devoted figure whom Julie dutifully marries in preference to the besotted young tutor Saint-Preux.

Sainte-Genevieve was thought suitable because its austere neoclassicism seemed to project the virtues associated with the philosophers and patriotic statesmen.

While Robespierre deliberately worked alone, cultivating, Jean-Jacques-like, the austere isolation of the prophet, the Girondins played off each other like members of a string quartet, the cadence and tempo of their transcendent rhetoric rising and falling, swelling and fading with the effect they had on each other.

I know that the austere language of truth is rarely welcomed near the throne but I also know that it is because it is so rarely heard that revolutions become necessary.

That this magistrate of austere appearance may have committed a crime in no way permits me to know him better.

Zeus, but to Mars Gradivus, god of long campaigns and austere discipline, or to grave Numa, inspired by the gods.

I was finishing this little analysis of the case when the door was opened and the austere figure of the great dermatologist was ushered in.

The door opened to admit a thin, austere figure with a hatchet face and drooping mid-Victorian whiskers of a glossy blackness which hardly corresponded with the rounded shoulders and feeble gait.

Holmes had spent several days in bed, as was his habit from time to time, but he emerged that morning with a long foolscap document in his hand and a twinkle of amusement in his austere gray eyes.

The door had opened and the page had shown in a tall, clean-shaven man with the firm, austere expression which is only seen upon those who have to control horses or boys.

He was not disappointed, for presently the old fellow arrived with a very worried and puzzled expression upon his austere face.

It had been assembled twenty-five years previously when the first colonists arrived, and its austere fittings were showing their age.

A ridge of electrophorescent cells circling the pad were casting an austere light over the spaceplane.

It was the head of a mediaeval saint, austere and beautiful, sharp as a cameo against its own black shadow.