| / English Dictionary |
AUSTERE
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Practicing great self-denial
Example:
a spartan existence
Synonyms:
ascetic; ascetical; austere; spartan
Classified under:
Similar:
abstemious (sparing in consumption of especially food and drink)
Derivation:
austerity (the trait of great self-denial (especially refraining from worldly pleasures))
Sense 2
Meaning:
Of a stern or strict bearing or demeanor; forbidding in aspect
Example:
a stern face
Synonyms:
austere; stern
Classified under:
Similar:
nonindulgent; strict (characterized by strictness, severity, or restraint)
Derivation:
austereness (extreme plainness)
Sense 3
Meaning:
Severely simple
Example:
a stark interior
Synonyms:
Classified under:
Adjectives
Similar:
plain (not elaborate or elaborated; simple)
Derivation:
austereness (extreme plainness)
Context examples:
Of those at the sides, I recall the reddish nose and dark, flashing eyes of the one, and the hard, austere face of the other, with the high coat-collars and many-wreathed cravats.
(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Swiftly and methodically Holmes turned over the contents of drawer after drawer and cupboard after cupboard, but no gleam of success came to brighten his austere face.
(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
An austere patriot's passion for his fatherland!
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
There was an inflexibility in her face, in her voice, in her gait and carriage, amply sufficient to account for the effect she had made upon a gentle creature like my mother; but her features were rather handsome than otherwise, though unbending and austere.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
As the gleam of the street-lamps flashed upon his austere features, I saw that his brows were drawn down in thought and his thin lips compressed.
(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
There were some jovial faces amongst them, but the older officers, with their deep-lined cheeks and their masterful noses, were, for the most part, as austere as so many weather-beaten ascetics from the desert.
(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
As she patted the dog's head, bending with native grace before his young and austere master, I saw a glow rise to that master's face.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
On the contrary, his austere face was even more severe than usual as he commented upon the things that I had done and the things that I had not.
(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
As I walked by his side homeward, I read well in his iron silence all he felt towards me: the disappointment of an austere and despotic nature, which has met resistance where it expected submission—the disapprobation of a cool, inflexible judgment, which has detected in another feelings and views in which it has no power to sympathise: in short, as a man, he would have wished to coerce me into obedience: it was only as a sincere Christian he bore so patiently with my perversity, and allowed so long a space for reflection and repentance.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
Her sufferings were physical as well as mental, for over one eye rose a hideous, plum-coloured swelling, which her maid, a tall, austere woman, was bathing assiduously with vinegar and water.
(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
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