Hairshirt
adj, noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A shirt made of haircloth; especially one worn by ascetics or the penitent.
"He is practically a total abstainer and I can affirm that he sleeps on a straw litter and eats the most Spartan food, cold dried grocer’s peas. He wears a hairshirt winter and summer and scourges himself every Saturday."
- 2 A state of penitence and humility. figuratively
"And when he went on to say, “The curse must be within ourselves,” Muir bequeathed us a hairshirt: the guilty conscience that plagues so many of us when we see what we are doing to the rest of nature."
- 1 Advocating or adopting a relatively ascetic lifestyle, especially for environmentalist reasons. not-comparable, relational
"The gloomy contentions of “hairshirt economists” who want more public and less private spending were assailed today by Robert W. Sarnoff, chairman of the National Broadcasting Company."
Example
More examples"He is practically a total abstainer and I can affirm that he sleeps on a straw litter and eats the most Spartan food, cold dried grocer’s peas. He wears a hairshirt winter and summer and scourges himself every Saturday."
Etymology
From hair + shirt.
Related phrases
More for "hairshirt"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.