Austerity

3 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Austerity \Aus*ter"i*ty\, n.; pl. {Austerities}. [F.
     aust['e]rit['e], L. austerias, fr. austerus. See {Austere}.]
     1. Sourness and harshness to the taste. [Obs.] --Horsley.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     2. Severity of manners or life; extreme rigor or strictness;


        harsh discipline.
        [1913 Webster]
  
              The austerity of John the Baptist.    --Milton.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     3. Plainness; freedom from adornment; severe simplicity.
        [1913 Webster]
  
              Partly owing to the studied austerity of her dress,
              and partly to the lack of demonstration in her
              manners.                              --Hawthorne.
        [1913 Webster]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  austerity
       n : the trait of great self-denial (especially refraining from
           worldly pleasures) [syn: {asceticism}, {nonindulgence}]

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

  134 Moby Thesaurus words for "austerity":
     Albigensianism, Catharism, Franciscanism, Lenten fare,
     Sabbatarianism, Spartan simplicity, Spartanism, Trappism,
     Waldensianism, Yoga, abstinence, anchoritic monasticism,
     anchoritism, asceticism, astringency, austerity program,
     authoritarianism, baldness, bareness, candor, canniness, care,
     carefulness, chariness, common speech, demandingness, directness,
     discipline, economic planning, economicalness, economy,
     economy of means, eremitism, exactingness, exiguity, exiguousness,
     false economy, fasting, flagellation, forehandedness, frankness,
     frugality, frugalness, good management, grimness, hardness,
     harshness, homespun, household words, husbandry, inclemency,
     inornateness, jejuneness, jejunity, leanness, maceration,
     management, matter-of-factness, meagerness, meanness, mendicantism,
     meticulousness, miserliness, monachism, monasticism, mortification,
     narrowness, naturalness, niggardliness, openness, paltriness,
     parsimoniousness, parsimony, plain English, plain speaking,
     plain speech, plain style, plain words, plainness, prosaicness,
     prosiness, providence, prudence, prudential administration,
     puniness, puritanism, regimentation, restrainedness,
     rigid discipline, rigor, roughness, ruggedness, rustic style,
     scantiness, scantness, scrawniness, scrimpiness, self-denial,
     self-mortification, severity, simpleness, simplicity, skimpiness,
     slenderness, slightness, slim pickings, slimness, smallness,
     soberness, spareness, sparingness, starkness, sternness,
     stinginess, straightforwardness, strictness, stringency, thinness,
     thrift, thriftiness, tight purse strings, toughness,
     unadorned style, unadornedness, unaffectedness, unelaborateness,
     unfanciness, unfussiness, ungentleness, unimaginativeness,
     unpoeticalness, unwastefulness, vernacular, voluntary poverty