austere
Americanadjective
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severe in manner or appearance; uncompromising; strict; forbidding.
an austere teacher.
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rigorously self-disciplined and severely moral; ascetic; abstinent.
the austere quality of life in the convent.
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grave; sober; solemn; serious.
an austere manner.
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without excess, luxury, or ease; simple; limited; severe.
an austere life.
- Antonyms:
- sybaritic, lush, comfortable, luxurious, luxurious
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severely simple; without ornament.
austere writing.
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rough to the taste; sour or harsh in flavor.
adjective
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stern or severe in attitude or manner
an austere schoolmaster
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grave, sober, or serious
an austere expression
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self-disciplined, abstemious, or ascetic
an austere life
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severely simple or plain
an austere design
Usage
What does austere mean? Austere most commonly means extremely stern or strict or without any frills or luxuries.Things that are described as austere are serious, harsh, or severely simple.The word is especially used to describe a state of extreme self-discipline or minimalistic living, such as the austere conditions in a monastery. Think of a monk who lives in a bedroom with only a metal cot and eats plain rice every day—that’s an austere lifestyle.The noun form of austere is austerity—the state of being austere.Example: You can’t expect people to cope with such austere conditions—they need more than the bare necessities.
Related Words
Austere, bleak, spartan, stark all suggest lack of ornament or adornment and of a feeling of comfort or warmth. Austere usually implies a purposeful avoidance of luxury or ease: simple, stripped-down, austere surroundings. Bleak adds a sense of forbidding coldness, hopelessness, depression: a bleak, dreary, windswept plain. Spartan, somewhat more forceful than austere, implies stern discipline and rigorous, even harsh, avoidance of all that is not strictly functional: a life of Spartan simplicity. Stark shares with bleak a sense of grimness and desolation: the stark cliff face.
Other Word Forms
- austerely adverb
- austereness noun
- unaustere adjective
- unausterely adverb
Etymology
Origin of austere
First recorded in 1300–50; Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Latin austērus, from Greek austērós “harsh, rough, bitter”
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Contemporary in the austere beauty of the sound and quiet intensity of the players.
In contrast to this lavish vision, at the show’s second venue, the convent of San Marco, visitors see the painter’s austere side.
The writer of “The Snow Leopard” and “At Play in the Fields of the Lord” wrote of nature’s austere simplicity.
Blame was laid at the door of the challenges posed to Britain's athletes in particular by Brexit and Covid, as well as the austere conditions all Games attendees had to live under in Beijing.
From BBC
Other car-themed paintings included a handsome triptych from 2022 that shows a scramble of tailpipes, navigational systems and bits of landscape rendered in the austere color palette of a freeway.
From Los Angeles Times
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
