AUSTERE

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does austere mean? 

• AUSTERE (adjective)
  The adjective AUSTERE has 3 senses:

1. severely simple

2. of a stern or strict bearing or demeanor; forbidding in aspect

3. practicing great self-denial

  Familiarity information: AUSTERE used as an adjective is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• AUSTERE (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Severely simple

Synonyms:

austere; severe; stark; stern

Context example:

a stark interior

Similar:

plain (not elaborate or elaborated; simple)

Derivation:

austereness (extreme plainness)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Of a stern or strict bearing or demeanor; forbidding in aspect

Synonyms:

austere; stern

Context example:

a stern face

Similar:

nonindulgent; strict (characterized by strictness, severity, or restraint)

Derivation:

austereness (extreme plainness)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Practicing great self-denial

Synonyms:

ascetic; ascetical; austere; spartan

Context example:

a spartan existence

Similar:

abstemious (sparing in consumption of especially food and drink)

Derivation:

austerity (the trait of great self-denial (especially refraining from worldly pleasures))

 Context examples 

The one, austere, high-nosed, eagle-eyed, and dominant, was none other than the illustrious Lord Bellinger, twice Premier of Britain.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Don't trouble yourself to answer—I see you laugh rarely; but you can laugh very merrily: believe me, you are not naturally austere, any more than I am naturally vicious.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

He was austere with himself; drank gin when he was alone, to mortify a taste for vintages; and though he enjoyed the theatre, had not crossed the doors of one for twenty years.

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

At his heels came our old friend Lestrade, of Scotland Yard—thin and austere.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

A tall, thin man, with a hard, austere face, had stepped out of the open doorway.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Right here, I think, entered the austere conscience of my Puritan ancestry, impelling me toward lurid deeds and sanctioning even murder as right conduct.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

And, finally, could this be the austere and prim figure which had risen before the meeting at the Zoological Institute?

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The gloomy taint that was in the Murdstone blood, darkened the Murdstone religion, which was austere and wrathful.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

His majesty, a prince of much gravity and austere countenance, not well observing my shape at first view, asked the queen after a cold manner how long it was since she grew fond of a splacnuck? for such it seems he took me to be, as I lay upon my breast in her majesty’s right hand.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

Then the strong, soothing hand of the austere maid drew her head down on to the cushion, and the wild anger died away into passionate sobbing.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)