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View synonyms for hair shirt

hair shirt

noun

  1. a garment of coarse haircloth, worn next to the skin as a penance by ascetics and penitents.
  2. self-imposed punishment, suffering, sacrifice, or penance.


hair shirt

noun

  1. a shirt made of haircloth worn next to the skin as a penance
  2. a secret trouble or affliction
“Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged” 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012


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Word History and Origins

Origin of hair shirt1

1350–1400; hair
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Idioms and Phrases

A self-imposed punishment or penance, as in I apologized a dozen times—do you want me to wear a hair shirt forever? This term, mentioned from the 13th century on, alludes to wearing a coarse, scratchy hair shirt, the practice of religious ascetics. Its figurative use dates from the mid-1800s.
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Example Sentences

“You don’t have to be vegan or take cold showers or wear a hair shirt, but just consuming less things is really helpful for the environment,” she said.

This is a coming-of-age story in which the transition from adolescence to adulthood is akin to swapping one hair shirt for another.

It’s not long before she’s wearing a hair shirt and sleeping on the floor with rats.

“Christ suffered so much that wearing a hair shirt is surely not painful. In my case I already have calluses, 40 years old, you can imagine,” he told local station Exitosa.

From Reuters

He wore his perfectionism like a hair shirt, and he expected it of others.

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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.

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