(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.
Fakir
Definition:
(n.) An Oriental religious ascetic or begging monk.
Example Sentences:
(1) It made perfect sense to use to spread those kinds of features and hardware around the wrist instead of throwing them all into one thick lump under the screen on top of your wrist,” said Omer El Fakir, industrial designer of Blocks.
(2) "If they keep insisting that it must be Zuma – a candidate charged with fraud – the ANC is implying that no other person can lead the party, which is not true," Fakir said.
(3) With its glittering shrines, labyrinthine alleys and dreadlocked, often doped-out fakirs – holy men – Sehwan is the largest centre of pilgrimage for Pakistan's Sufi Muslims.
(4) Fakir is head of international relations and governance at the South African Department of Environmental Affairs, while McDonald is deputy director general of the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID).
(5) After the Highgate event, there was a retreat up the hill to the Old Crown Inn, where an ancient notice attached to the wall spelled out the Rules of the Inn: "No thieves, fakirs, rogues or tinkers."
(6) "We'd love to replicate the success of the Pebble," said El Fakir.
(7) He branded Gandhi "a half-naked fakir" who "ought to be laid, bound hand and foot, at the gates of Delhi and then trampled on by an enormous elephant with the new viceroy seated on its back".
(8) Ewen McDonald, from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, was appointed co-chair of the Green Climate Fund board alongside South Africa's Zaheer Fakir for the first year of its operations – from August 2012 to August this year.
(9) Ebrahim Fakir, senior researcher at the Johannesburg-based Centre for Policy Studies, said the ANC's position on Zuma had until now had been one of "manufactured consensus", but that dissenting voices may now begin to be heard.
(10) These were the South African representative Zaheer Fakir and Australia's Ewen McDonald, who had been favourite to win the post.