Asceticism

//əˈsɛt.əˌsɪz.əm// noun

noun ·Uncommon ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The principles and practices of an ascetic; extreme self-denial and austerity. countable, uncountable
  2. 2
    rigorous self-denial and active self-restraint wordnet
  3. 3
    the trait of great self-denial (especially refraining from worldly pleasures) wordnet
  4. 4
    the doctrine that through renunciation of worldly pleasures it is possible to achieve a high spiritual or intellectual state wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
abstainmentabstemiousnessabstentionabstinenceascesisausterity

Etymology

From ascetic + -ism.

Related phrases

self denial

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.