(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.
Stoic
Definition:
(n.) A disciple of the philosopher Zeno; one of a Greek sect which held that men should be free from passion, unmoved by joy or grief, and should submit without complaint to unavoidable necessity, by which all things are governed.
(n.) Hence, a person not easily excited; an apathetic person; one who is apparently or professedly indifferent to pleasure or pain.
(n.) Alt. of Stoical
Example Sentences:
(1) His mother, devoted and stoic, read aloud the sad, true stories of cruelty and passion between the wars contained in his father's briefs for the divorce court.
(2) My dear stoic father, honest as the days are long, was looking, for once in his life, thoroughly jangled, and I kept wanting to impart upon him mentally the wise words of Grandpa Abe Simpson : "They say the greatest tragedy is when a father outlives his son.
(3) I don’t know if it has to do with his stoic demeanor as he sat behind President Obama during a State of the Union, or those baby-blue eyes all over the news on Tuesday, as he announced that he wasn’t running for president this year, citing his faith in the political process ( swoon ).
(4) There's Diane, the co-founding partner at Alicia's law firm, who is neither bitch nor secretly unfulfilled nor shrew; Alicia herself, an almost uniquely stoic female character; Kalinda, who – well, she just kicks ass in every way, don't get me started; Peter's mother, who sits like a sweetly smiling spider in the middle of the domestic web; and even the Florricks' 14-year-old daughter is not a screaming teenage cipher but a thoughtful and considered player in this increasingly brilliant ensemble piece.
(5) A paranoid strain is manifest in Stoic utterances generally, especially in the Stoic conception of autarky, where the Sage regards himself as distinctly "other" in the midst of society, and indifferent to its values, except as he dissembles his indifference.
(6) Rahat, then 23, was expected to quietly carry on the family tradition: a stoic commitment to devotional music.
(7) Scattered throughout are cutaways of undulating hills and stoic ruminants filming exterior shots of sheep against a backdrop of yawning bees.
(8) I looked over toward the stoic portrait of Alfred Wegener for a bit of strength.
(9) I expected sadness but there was mainly stoic pride.
(10) "That tribalist attitude, that stoic adherence to past genres – especially coming from Manchester – it's really weird, because no person of my generation consumes any media in a linear format.
(11) A stoic silence, sustained by an artificial pretence that Mr Brown has his party's convinced backing, may be thought the best strategy now – even if voters will see through it.
(12) This myth is embodied by a stoic and conflictive figure, product of an ethnic mixture, but more essentially of transculturation.
(13) The British themselves are pretty stoic, there is a long tradition of watching sport in rain macs or listening to Cliff Richard or whatever.
(14) Beginning with a very different attitude of the antiquity taken up to suicide, which was normally not regarded as a self-murdering but as a voluntary departing this life and as such as a philosophically based act of liberty especially by members of the stoic system who not seldom commited suicide themselves, another estimation is discussed which was exercised by the Pythagoreans and the members of the Aristotele's doctrine.
(15) DM: Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti is playing the stoic holding role, refusing to budge and occasionally gesticulating wildly at the referee, although never actually getting into the danger zone at the forefront of the action.
(16) He paid as much attention to the floorboards or the tangle of buddleia in the yard below as he would to a woman's belly, Leigh Bowery's feminine bulk, Bruce Bernard's stoic drunkard's poise, Lord Goodman's vanity, Sue the Benefits Supervisor's affected boredom.
(17) Hunt, described on Monday by Sukey Cameron, representative of the Falkland Islands in London, as "stoic", deployed the local defence force of about 60 men (of which he was commander-in-chief) and a contingent of about 80 Royal Marines.
(18) What is more, Smith was scrupulous in ensuring that at no point had his philosophy been built on Christian or even, as some have claimed, Stoic, assumptions.
(19) In his memoirs, he seems stoic rather than bitter about his fall from grace: “In the eyes of the Parisians, who like routine in things but are changeable when it comes to people, I committed two great wrongs.
(20) In fact, by now, I have reached the conclusion that a person may make a decision to die because the balance of their mind is level, realistic, pragmatic, stoic and sharp.