AUSTERE • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Austere

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

/ɔstˈɪr/ Listen

adjective

Austere adj.

Sour and astringent; rough to the state; having acerbity; as, an austere crab apple; austere wine.

Severe in modes of judging, or living, or acting; rigid; rigorous; stern; as, an austere man, look, life. "From whom the austere Etrurian virtue rose."

Unadorned; unembellished; severely simple.

Synonyms: Harsh; sour; rough; rigid; stern; severe; rigorous; strict.

See images of 'Austere'

Etymology of 'Austere'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Share |

"Austere" Quotes from Famous Books

... seemed as if New England air For his large lungs too parsimonious were, As if those empty rooms of dogma drear 370 Where the ghost shivers of a faith austere Counting the horns o'er of the Beast, Still scaring those whose faith to it is least, As if those snaps o' th' moral atmosphere That sharpen all the needles of the East, Had been to him like death, Accustomed to draw Europe's freer breath In ...

— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell

... afford to be individual, and introduce a riot of colours, provided they are all in the same key. Luxurious cushions, soft rugs and a hundred and one feminine touches will create atmosphere and knit together the austere scheme of line—the anatomy of your room. Colour and textiles are the flesh ...

— The Art of Interior Decoration • Grace Wood

... list of "Dramatis Personae." Bjoernson, in some of his later plays, was, so far as I am aware, the first of the moderns to adopt this plan. I do not know whether his example has influenced certain English playwrights, or whether they arrived independently at the same austere principle, by sheer force of individual genius. The matter is a trifling one—so trifling that the departure from established practice has something of the air of a pedantry. It is not, on the whole, to be approved. It adds perceptibly to the difficulty which some ...

— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer

... insane, or were they bewitched by this morose intruder and his insufferably familiar confidant? The man was wounded, it was true; they might have to put him up in common humanity; but here was her austere mother, who wouldn't come in the room when Whisky Dick called on business, actually pressing both of the invalid's hands, while her sister, who never extended a finger to the ordinary visiting humanity of the neighborhood, looked on with ...

— Snow-Bound at Eagle's • Bret Harte

... was already losing power; the sense that it had all been a dream grew stronger every minute. In a few hours she would re-enter the little house close under the shadow of that old Wren church, which reminded her somehow of childhood, and her austere father with his chiselled face. The meeting with her husband! How go through that! And to-night! But she did not care to contemplate to-night. And all those to-morrows wherein there was nothing she had to do of which it was reasonable ...

— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

More quotes...