MONASTIC

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does monastic mean? 

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

1. a male religious living in a cloister and devoting himself to contemplation and prayer and work

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

• MONASTIC (adjective)
  The adjective MONASTIC has 1 sense:

1. of communal life sequestered from the world under religious vows

  Familiarity information: MONASTIC used as an adjective is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• MONASTIC (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A male religious living in a cloister and devoting himself to contemplation and prayer and work

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

monastic; monk

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

religious (a member of a religious order who is bound by vows of poverty and chastity and obedience)

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

Brother ((Roman Catholic Church) a title given to a monk and used as form of address)

Carthusian (a member of the Carthusian order)

Cistercian; Trappist (member of an order of monks noted for austerity and a vow of silence)

Instance hyponyms:

Bacon; Roger Bacon (English scientist and Franciscan monk who stressed the importance of experimentation; first showed that air is required for combustion and first used lenses to correct vision (1220-1292))

Benedict; Saint Benedict; St. Benedict (Italian monk who founded the Benedictine order about 540 (480-547))

Gregor Mendel; Johann Mendel; Mendel (Augustinian monk and botanist whose experiments in breeding garden peas led to his eventual recognition as founder of the science of genetics (1822-1884))

Pelagius (a British or Irish monk who denied the doctrines of original sin and predestination and defended human goodness and free will; his views were declared heretical by the Council of Ephesus in 431 (circa 360-418))

Derivation:

monastic (of communal life sequestered from the world under religious vows)

• MONASTIC (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Of communal life sequestered from the world under religious vows

Synonyms:

cloistered; cloistral; conventual; monastic; monastical

Similar:

unworldly (not concerned with the temporal world or swayed by mundane considerations)

Derivation:

monastic (a male religious living in a cloister and devoting himself to contemplation and prayer and work)

 Context examples 

Let the matter be brought to an issue then according to our old-time monastic habit.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

In revolving these matters, while she undressed, it suddenly struck her as not unlikely that she might that morning have passed near the very spot of this unfortunate woman's confinement—might have been within a few paces of the cell in which she languished out her days; for what part of the abbey could be more fitted for the purpose than that which yet bore the traces of monastic division?

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

The youth was not clad in monastic garb, but in lay attire, though his jerkin, cloak and hose were all of a sombre hue, as befitted one who dwelt in sacred precincts.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

In the old monastic days he remembered to have heard such a sound when he had walked out one windy night at Bucklershard, and had listened to the long waves breaking upon the shingly shore.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Charges brought upon the second Thursday after the Feast of the Assumption, in the year of our Lord thirteen hundred and sixty-six, against brother John, formerly known as Hordle John, or John of Hordle, but now a novice in the holy monastic order of the Cistercians.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

To the right Sir Oliver, Aylward, Hordle John, and the bowmen of the Company fought furiously against the monkish Knights of Santiago, who were led up the hill by their prior—a great, deep-chested man, who wore a brown monastic habit over his suit of mail.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

That night the Company slept at St. Leonard's, in the great monastic barns and spicarium—ground well known both to Alleyne and to John, for they were almost within sight of the Abbey of Beaulieu.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)