ASCETIC

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does ascetic mean? 

• ASCETIC (noun)
  The noun ASCETIC has 1 sense:

1. someone who practices self denial as a spiritual discipline

  Familiarity information: ASCETIC used as a noun is very rare.

• ASCETIC (adjective)
  The adjective ASCETIC has 2 senses:

1. pertaining to or characteristic of an ascetic or the practice of rigorous self-discipline

2. practicing great self-denial

  Familiarity information: ASCETIC used as an adjective is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• ASCETIC (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Someone who practices self denial as a spiritual discipline

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

abstainer; ascetic

Hypernyms ("ascetic" is a kind of...):

religious person (a person who manifests devotion to a deity)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "ascetic"):

puritan (someone who adheres to strict religious principles; someone opposed to sensual pleasures)

stylite (an early Christian ascetic who lived on top of high pillars)

Derivation:

ascetic (practicing great self-denial)

ascetic (pertaining to or characteristic of an ascetic or the practice of rigorous self-discipline)

ascetical (practicing great self-denial)

ascetical (pertaining to or characteristic of an ascetic or the practice of rigorous self-discipline)

• ASCETIC (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Pertaining to or characteristic of an ascetic or the practice of rigorous self-discipline

Classified under:

Relational adjectives (pertainyms)

Synonyms:

ascetic; ascetical

Context example:

ascetic practices

Pertainym:

ascetic (someone who practices self denial as a spiritual discipline)

Derivation:

ascetic (someone who practices self denial as a spiritual discipline)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Practicing great self-denial

Synonyms:

ascetic; ascetical; austere; spartan

Context example:

a spartan existence

Similar:

abstemious (sparing in consumption of especially food and drink)

Derivation:

ascetic (someone who practices self denial as a spiritual discipline)

 Context examples 

But Martin saw in that ascetic face the advertisement that there was nothing of which it was afraid.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

The Premier’s thin, blue-veined hands were clasped tightly over the ivory head of his umbrella, and his gaunt, ascetic face looked gloomily from Holmes to me.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Behind the thrones there stood two men in purple gowns, with ascetic, clean-shaven faces, and half a dozen other high dignitaries and office-holders of Aquitaine.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

There were some jovial faces amongst them, but the older officers, with their deep-lined cheeks and their masterful noses, were, for the most part, as austere as so many weather-beaten ascetics from the desert.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

He sat coiled in his armchair, his haggard and ascetic face hardly visible amid the blue swirl of his tobacco smoke, his black brows drawn down, his forehead contracted, his eyes vacant and far away.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

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.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Professor Challenger's beard may be more shaggy, Professor Summerlee's features more ascetic, Lord John Roxton's figure more gaunt, and all three may be burned to a darker tint than when they left our shores, but each appeared to be in most excellent health.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

With the face of an ascetic, he was, in all the failing blood of him, a frank voluptuary.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

A man of deep character, a man with an alert mind, grim, ascetic, self-contained, formidable—so I read Dr. Leslie Armstrong.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

His photographs were published broadcast, and special writers exploited his strong, bronzed face, his scars, his heavy shoulders, his clear, quiet eyes, and the slight hollows in his cheeks like an ascetic's.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)