Adjacent Words

Austere definitions

	Tweet

Webster's 1828 Dictionary

AUSTE'RE, a. [L. Austerus.
1. Severe; harsh; rigid; stern; applied to persons; as an austere master; an austere look.
2. Sour; harsh; rough to the taste; applied to things; as austere fruit, or wine.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

adj
1: severely simple; "a stark interior" [syn: austere, severe, stark, stern]
2: of a stern or strict bearing or demeanor; forbidding in aspect; "an austere expression"; "a stern face" [syn: austere, stern]
3: practicing great self-denial; "Be systematically ascetic...do...something for no other reason than that you would rather not do it"- William James; "a desert nomad's austere life"; "a spartan diet"; "a spartan existence" [syn: ascetic, ascetical, austere, spartan]

Merriam Webster's

adjective Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Latin austerus, from Greek aust?ros harsh, severe; akin to Greek hauos dry — more at sere Date: 14th century 1. a. stern and cold in appearance or manner b. somber, grave <an austere critic> 2. morally strict ; ascetic 3. markedly simple or unadorned <an austere office> <an austere style of writing> 4. giving little or no scope for pleasure <austere diets> 5. of a wine having the flavor of acid or tannin predominant over fruit flavors usually indicating a capacity for aging Synonyms: see severe • austerely adverb • austereness noun

Oxford Reference Dictionary

adj. (austerer, austerest) 1 severely simple. 2 morally strict. 3 harsh, stern. Derivatives: austerely adv. Etymology: ME f. OF f. L austerus f. Gk austeros severe

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Austere Aus*tere", [F. aust[`e]re, L. austerus, fr. Gr. ?, fr. ? to parch, dry. Cf. Sear.] 1. Sour and astringent; rough to the state; having acerbity; as, an austere crab apple; austere wine. 2. Severe in modes of judging, or living, or acting; rigid; rigorous; stern; as, an austere man, look, life. From whom the austere Etrurian virtue rose. --Dryden. 3. Unadorned; unembellished; severely simple. Syn: Harsh; sour; rough; rigid; stern; severe; rigorous; strict.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

1. If you describe something as austere, you approve of its plain and simple appearance. The church was austere and simple. ADJ [approval] 2. If you describe someone as austere, you disapprove of them because they are strict and serious. I found her a rather austere, distant, somewhat cold person. ADJ [disapproval] 3. An austere way of life is one that is simple and without luxuries. The life of the troops was still comparatively austere. = spartan ADJ 4. An austere economic policy is one which reduces people's living standards sharply. ...a set of very austere economic measures to control inflation. ADJ

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia

os-ter' austeros, "harsh," ("rough"): Twice used by Christ in the parable of the Pounds (Lu 19:21,22), and of special significance as illustrating the false conception of God cherished by the sinful and disobedient. The fear resident in a guilty conscience sees only sternness and severity in God's perfect righteousness. The word may be made an eminent study in the psychology of an evil heart. Wrongdoing eclipses the soul's vision of God's love and pictures His righteousness as harsh, unfeeling, partial, unjust, forbidding. The awfulness of sin may thus be seen in its power so to pervert the soul as to make goodness seem evil, justice unjust, and even love unlovely. Compare "hard" skleros, "dried up," "harsh" in the parable of the Talents (Mt 25:24).

Dwight M. Pratt

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

a. 1. Rough (to the taste), sour, and astringent. 2. Severe, rigid, strict, formal, stiff, rigorous, harsh, stern, difficult, hard, uncompromising, unrelenting, relentless, ascetic, straight-laced.

Moby Thesaurus

Albigensian, Catharist, Franciscan, Lenten, Sabbatarian, Spartan, Spartanic, Trappist, Waldensian, abstemious, abstinent, amaroidal, anchoritic, ascetic, astringent, authoritarian, bald, bare, basic, biting, bitter, bleak, candid, chaste, common, commonplace, demanding, direct, dour, dry, dull, dwarfed, dwarfish, earnest, elementary, eremitic, essential, exacting, exigent, exiguous, flagellant, frank, frugal, fundamental, grave, grim, hard, harsh, homely, homespun, homogeneous, impoverished, inclement, indivisible, inornate, irreducible, jejune, keen, lean, limited, matter-of-fact, meager, mean, mendicant, mere, meticulous, miserly, monolithic, mortified, narrow, natural, neat, niggardly, of a piece, open, paltry, parsimonious, plain, plain-speaking, plain-spoken, poor, primal, primary, prosaic, prosing, prosy, puny, pure, pure and simple, puritanical, rigoristic, rough, rugged, rustic, scant, scanty, scrawny, scrimp, scrimpy, self-denying, serious, severe, sharp, simon-pure, simple, simple-speaking, single, skimp, skimpy, slender, slight, slim, small, sober, somber, spare, sparing, stark, starvation, stern, stingy, stinted, straightforward, straitened, strict, stringent, stunted, subsistence, thin, tough, unadorned, unaffected, uncluttered, undecorated, undifferenced, undifferentiated, unelaborate, unembellished, unfancy, unfussy, ungentle, uniform, unimaginative, unnourishing, unnutritious, unornamented, unornate, unpoetical, unsparing, unvarnished, watered, watery, wedded to poverty