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ASCETIC Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster

variants or less commonly ascetical

: practicing strict self-denial as a measure of personal and especially spiritual discipline

: austere in appearance, manner, or attitude Did you know?

If you’ve been refraining from adding ascetic to your vocabulary, it’s time to let your hair down and live a little! In other words, be the opposite of ascetic. Ascetic comes from askētikos, a Greek adjective meaning “laborious,” and its earliest meaning in English implies the labor involved in abstention from pleasure, comfort, and self-indulgence as a spiritual discipline. These days, ascetic is also used to describe anyone or anything demonstrating marked restraint, plainness, or simplicity, even when no appeals to the divine or spiritual are attached, making it not unlike another adjective with connections to ancient Greece: spartan.

Choose the Right Synonym for ascetic

severe, stern, austere, ascetic mean given to or marked by strict discipline and firm restraint.

severe implies standards enforced without indulgence or laxity and may suggest harshness.

severe military discipline

stern stresses inflexibility and inexorability of temper or character.

stern arbiters of public morality

austere stresses absence of warmth, color, or feeling and may apply to rigorous restraint, simplicity, or self-denial.

living an austere life in the country

ascetic implies abstention from pleasure and comfort or self-indulgence as spiritual discipline.

the ascetic life of the monks

Examples of ascetic in a Sentence

Patterson's collection begins on the walls of the stairway to his basement. "That's where Cindy draws the line. That's probably a real good idea," he says. Mattsson, ascetic for a bachelor, imposes the same rule on himself. LeBeau, who has never been married, is much less restrained. —Tom Harpole, Air & Space, December 1999/January 2000 By Hollywood standards, Calley's career path may seem enigmatic, but then, so is his personality. If Mark Canton, the previous Sony president, was the boastful, Armani-clad big spender, Calley is downright ascetic, a man who disdains Hollywood profligacy. —Peter Bart, GQ, August 1997 He converted to Catholicism and, after a long period of intense self-questioning, became a Trappist monk at the Abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky, which, at the time, was as ascetic and demanding as any monastery of the Middle Ages. —Julius Lester, Falling Pieces of the Broken Sky, 1990 Recent Examples on the Web Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback. This is especially clear in the contrast between Marcus Luria and his father, the ascetic sage Zalia Ziskind. —Adam Kirsch, The New Yorker, 21 Mar. 2025 While Mathu is an ascetic loner, Malby was a hedonistic womanizer. —Matthew Carey, Deadline, 20 Feb. 2025 By the 18th century, the 13 major ascetic akharas, or sects of Hindu priests, played a central role in Kumbh Mela rituals. —Aakash Hassan, The Christian Science Monitor, 29 Jan. 2025 From afar, there’s certainly something of the guru or the ascetic about Martin, something highly therapized and slightly otherworldly. —Alex Morris, Rolling Stone, 19 Dec. 2024 See All Example Sentences for ascetic

Word History

Etymology

Greek askētikos, literally, laborious, from askētēs one that exercises, hermit, from askein to work, exercise

First Known Use

1646, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Time Traveler

The first known use of ascetic was in 1646

Cite this Entry

“Ascetic.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ascetic. Accessed 10 May. 2025.