Search Result for "austere": 
Wordnet 3.0

ADJECTIVE (3)

1. severely simple;
- Example: "a stark interior"
[syn: austere, severe, stark, stern]

2. of a stern or strict bearing or demeanor; forbidding in aspect;
- Example: "an austere expression"
- Example: "a stern face"
[syn: austere, stern]

3. practicing great self-denial;
- Example: "Be systematically ascetic...do...something for no other reason than that you would rather not do it"- William James
- Example: "a desert nomad's austere life"
- Example: "a spartan diet"
- Example: "a spartan existence"
[syn: ascetic, ascetical, austere, spartan]


The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:

Austere \Aus*tere"\, [F. aust[`e]re, L. austerus, fr. Gr. ?, fr. ? to parch, dry. Cf. Sear.] 1. Sour and astringent; rough to the state; having acerbity; as, an austere crab apple; austere wine. [1913 Webster] 2. Severe in modes of judging, or living, or acting; rigid; rigorous; stern; as, an austere man, look, life. [1913 Webster] From whom the austere Etrurian virtue rose. --Dryden. [1913 Webster] 3. Unadorned; unembellished; severely simple. [1913 Webster] Syn: Harsh; sour; rough; rigid; stern; severe; rigorous; strict. [1913 Webster]
WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):

austere adj 1: severely simple; "a stark interior" [syn: austere, severe, stark, stern] 2: of a stern or strict bearing or demeanor; forbidding in aspect; "an austere expression"; "a stern face" [syn: austere, stern] 3: practicing great self-denial; "Be systematically ascetic...do...something for no other reason than that you would rather not do it"- William James; "a desert nomad's austere life"; "a spartan diet"; "a spartan existence" [syn: ascetic, ascetical, austere, spartan]
Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0:

153 Moby Thesaurus words for "austere": Albigensian, Catharist, Franciscan, Lenten, Sabbatarian, Spartan, Spartanic, Trappist, Waldensian, abstemious, abstinent, amaroidal, anchoritic, ascetic, astringent, authoritarian, bald, bare, basic, biting, bitter, bleak, candid, chaste, common, commonplace, demanding, direct, dour, dry, dull, dwarfed, dwarfish, earnest, elementary, eremitic, essential, exacting, exigent, exiguous, flagellant, frank, frugal, fundamental, grave, grim, hard, harsh, homely, homespun, homogeneous, impoverished, inclement, indivisible, inornate, irreducible, jejune, keen, lean, limited, matter-of-fact, meager, mean, mendicant, mere, meticulous, miserly, monolithic, mortified, narrow, natural, neat, niggardly, of a piece, open, paltry, parsimonious, plain, plain-speaking, plain-spoken, poor, primal, primary, prosaic, prosing, prosy, puny, pure, pure and simple, puritanical, rigoristic, rough, rugged, rustic, scant, scanty, scrawny, scrimp, scrimpy, self-denying, serious, severe, sharp, simon-pure, simple, simple-speaking, single, skimp, skimpy, slender, slight, slim, small, sober, somber, spare, sparing, stark, starvation, stern, stingy, stinted, straightforward, straitened, strict, stringent, stunted, subsistence, thin, tough, unadorned, unaffected, uncluttered, undecorated, undifferenced, undifferentiated, unelaborate, unembellished, unfancy, unfussy, ungentle, uniform, unimaginative, unnourishing, unnutritious, unornamented, unornate, unpoetical, unsparing, unvarnished, watered, watery, wedded to poverty