AUSTERE • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Austere

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/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.

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Etymology of 'Austere'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Austere" Quotes from Famous Books

... long after she returned to New York that the wealthy and eminent specialist who attended her insisted upon taking her to the Riviera and marrying her. I sometimes wonder—but, as I have said, such reflections have no place in these austere pages. ...

— In Search of the Unknown • Robert W. Chambers

... to them. I have gone through all; your own manuscript, which I envy Mr. Gough, his specimen, and the four letters to you from the latter and Mr. Steevens. I am glad they were both satisfied with my reception. In truth, you know I am neither formal nor austere, nor have any grave aversion to our antiquities, though I do now and then divert myself with their solemnity about arrant trifles; yet perhaps we owe much to their thinking those trifles of importance, or the Lord knows how they would have patience to investigate them ...

— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole

... hardly be overstated. In other cases there was extravagance and harm. Uncompromisingly, and not very intelligently, did they speak Scripture, think Scripture, and act Scripture, like Hebrews born out of due season. Knox invested himself with the austere authority of the Hebrew prophet; Calvin was fain to hew Agag in pieces before the Lord. The Puritans of England became fanatical in their sombre conception of sin and in the rigour of their exaggerated Hebraism. Here was the second period of Hebraic ...

— Platform Monologues • T. G. Tucker

... blue horizon. The moon soared radiant and calm, the white stars shone serene. The vault of heaven seemed illimitable and divine. The desert surrounded him, silver-streaked and black-mantled, a chaos of rock and sand, silent, austere, ancient, always waiting. It spoke to Cameron. It was a naked corpse, but it had a soul. In that wild solitude the white stars looked down upon him pitilessly and pityingly. They had shone upon a desert that might once have been alive and was now ...

— Desert Gold • Zane Grey

... from the laboratory, and not from the soil by the sweat of the brow. Toil was unknown; the toil that we know, menial, degrading and harassing. Science had been the magician that had done away all that. Science, so formidable and austere to our untutored minds, had been gracious to these fair beings and opened the door to nature's most occult secrets. The beauty of those women it is not in my power to describe. The Greeks, in their highest art, never rivalled it, for here ...

— Mizora: A Prophecy - A MSS. Found Among the Private Papers of the Princess Vera Zarovitch • Mary E. Bradley

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