(a.) Extremely rigid in self-denial and devotions; austere; severe.
(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.
Example Sentences:
(1) Famously ascetic, teetotal and vegetarian, he meditates, practises yoga and shuns the trappings of office.
(2) There are several basic structures upon which anorexia nervosa could develop: hostility between mother and daughter, feministic protest, abandonnism, the ascetic structure, the reluctance against the being-thrown-on-the-world, asw.
(3) As Obama put it himself, decades later, "I was leading an ascetic existence, way too serious for my own good".
(4) Pitt says Malick is nothing like the ascetic monk he's often imagined to be.
(5) But the other point is that unilateral opting out might mean you end up living a somewhat ascetic life.
(6) Now, it's all too easy to portray the average politician as a policy-wonk fed since the age of 14 on position papers on social policy and party outreach, professionally married to the job, ascetically weaned day and night on the company of his or her fellow party workers and political researchers, never seeing daylight, never watching telly, never having any cultural development outside whatever serves their policy purview.
(7) He is described as ascetic, highly disciplined and unfazed by the prospect of violence.
(8) These studies (2, 3, 5, 6) have demonstrated that the high IgE responses induced in low responder mice can be substantially diminished, and even abolished, by passively transfusing serum or ascetic fluid from donor mice previously inoculated with mycobacterial-containing complete Freund's adjuvant (CFA).
(9) (Because obviously, no one minds if you win or lose a game of football – and at the full-time whistle, after meditating for a while, the players pool their wages with the fans, before shyly retiring to their modest homes and ascetic lifestyles.)
(10) They are both people who appeal to better human values.” The Dalai Lama leads an ascetic life, rising before dawn to meditate and spending much of his time reading, thinking and taking long walks before retiring to bed at about 8.30pm.
(11) We’re approaching a point where a significant number of people want to change.” Brand is hardly an ascetic, but he is learning about self-denial.
(12) But Mr Putin has ended that disarray and rehabilitated the KGB as the embodiment of the ascetic, incorruptible public service.
(13) Overshadowed by his father, competent but underwhelming as a minister and shadow minister, high-minded and ascetic in his habits, Benn had seemed set to go through a political life without leaving a great mark.
(14) It is the religious aspects of enigmatic Persia that helped put an 80-year-old exiled ascetic at the head of state 30 years ago, then the charismatic cleric Khatami in office 12 years ago, the honest son of a blacksmith – Ahmedinejad – four years ago, and the same yesterday.
(15) Kafka was slim and underweight throughout his life and showed an ascetic attitude and abjuration of physical enjoyment and pleasure (fasting, vegetarianism, sexual abstinence, emphasis on physical fitness).
(16) Takao is still considered an important religious site, so don't be surprised to find yourself sharing a trail with ascetic Buddhists on their way to pray at Yakuo-in temple or cleanse themselves beneath the freezing waterfalls of Biwa-daki or Hebi-daki.
(17) He likened himself to an ascetic and a house cat and said he rarely left the house, spending most of his days surfing the internet – though visitors have brought him piles of books.
(18) From the 9th century, Sufi ascetics wandered the Islamic world, attracting followers to their gentle form of mystical Islam (the word Sufi is often thought to have come from suuf - wool - from the woollen garments the holy men wore).
(19) In the pre-State era, Israeli society displayed an "ascetic" orientation with emphasis on austerity and egalitarianism.
(20) In the moment of victory Murray dropped his racket and turned, mouth agape, towards the nearest section of the crowd – by happy coincidence also the press box – before crumpling to his knees on Centre Court, overcome at the end point of a gruellingly ascetic, occasionally obsessive journey towards an unassailable career high.
Austere
Definition:
() Sour and astringent; rough to the state; having acerbity; as, an austere crab apple; austere wine.
() Severe in modes of judging, or living, or acting; rigid; rigorous; stern; as, an austere man, look, life.
() Unadorned; unembellished; severely simple.
Example Sentences:
(1) Since the start of this week, markets have been more cautious, with bond yields in Spain reaching their highest levels in four months on Tuesday amid concern about the scale of the austerity measures being imposed by the government and fears that the country might need a bailout.
(2) In a separate exclusive interview , Alexis Tsipras, the increasingly powerful 37-year-old Greek politician now regarded by many as holding the future of the euro in his hands, told the Guardian that he was determined "to stop the experiment" with austerity policies imposed by Germany.
(3) He campaigned for a no vote and won handsomely, backed by more than 61%, before performing a striking U-turn on Thursday night, re-tabling the same austerity terms he had campaigned to defeat and which the voters rejected.
(4) But that promise was beginning to startle the markets, which admire Monti’s appetite for austerity and fear the free spending and anti-European views of some Italian politicians.
(5) Cable argued that the additional £30bn austerity proposed by the chancellor after 2015 went beyond the joint coalition commitment to eradicate the structural part of the UK's current budget deficit – the part of non-investment spending that will not disappear even when the economy has fully emerged from the recession of 2008-09.
(6) All of the parties have been trying to use Greece to their advantage.” On Monday, the governing People’s party pointed to the referendum to justify their decision to impose austerity measures during the height of the economic crisis.
(7) Greece sincerely had no intention of clashing with its partners, Varoufakis insisted, but the logic of austerity was such that policies conducted in its embrace could only fail.
(8) As Greece pleads with its eurozone creditors for more time in meeting its fiscal adjustment targets, Dombrovskis is a fierce champion of surgical austerity applied quickly and ruthlessly.
(9) Updated at 12.23pm BST 12.04pm BST As Mariano Rajoy and François Hollande prepare to reveal their austerity budgets (Spain goes on Thursday and France on Friday), they might be forgiven for casting an envious eye towards Australia where government statisticians revealed that the country is A$325bn (£200bn) better off than they'd thought.
(10) This proposal is a purely partisan move that will backfire on the government disastrously.” The Green party accused Osborne of making “efforts to limit the democratic scrutiny of his austerity agenda”.
(11) The budget red book contained a chart which suggested that the rich were indeed facing a bigger hit than anyone else, and Liberal Democrats were today pointing to this to justify the austerity package.
(12) "But if public opposition to further austerity measures hardens, the Greek government could find it even tougher to put the public finances back on a sustainable footing."
(13) The austerity programmes administered by western governments in the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis were, of course, intended as a remedy, a tough but necessary course of treatment to relieve the symptoms of debts and deficits and to cure recession.
(14) In the midst of this catastrophe, the troika is insisting on further austerity to achieve massive primary budget surpluses of 3% in 2015, 4.5% in 2016 and even more in future years.
(15) In a Europe (including Britain) where austerity has become the economic dogma of the elite in spite of massive evidence that it is choking growth and worsening the very sickness it claims to heal, there are plenty of rational, sensible arguments for taking to the streets.
(16) The Attlee government was toppled by peacetime austerity that voters no longer trusted.
(17) After heading for Rome with his long-term partner, Howard Auster, he returned to fiction with a bestselling novel, Julian, based on the life of a late Roman emperor; a political novel, Washington DC, based on his own family; and Myra Breckinridge, a subversive satire that examined contradictions of gender and sexuality with enough comic brio to become a worldwide bestseller.
(18) Yesterday, John McDonnell spelled out the new Labour leadership’s public investment-driven economic alternative to austerity.
(19) Then Greece has another chance.” But the intervention by the IMF will undermine EU leaders who argue Greece must submit to a fresh round of austerity measures to release funds for debt repayments.
(20) The IMF itself came under fire after it admitted in its World Economic Outlook report that officials had underestimated the effects of austerity measures on economic growth.