Austerity

Quick meaning: Austerity is a noun meaning Severity of manners or life; extreme rigor or strictness; harsh discipline.

Meaning

Severity of manners or life; extreme rigor or strictness; harsh discipline.

More Meanings

1. Freedom from adornment; plainness; severe simplicity.
2. (economics) A policy of deficit-cutting, which by definition requires lower spending, higher taxes, or both.
3. (obsolete) Sourness and harshness to the taste.

Example Sentences

After millenniums of austerity and poverty, the age of limitless “superabundance” was at hand.

The war-torn first half of the 20th century, together with the railway grouping of 1923, ushered in further austerity in design.

One critic [Madeleine Schwartz] recently noted that the politics of Rooney’s novels were largely “gestural,” with airy mentions of Gaza or austerity protests but not much radical substance.

He said France clearly wanted to "close one page and open another". He reiterated his opposition to austerity alone as the only way out of Europe's crisis: "My final duty, and I know I'm being watched from beyond our borders, is to put Europe back on the path of growth and employment."

Word Forms

• austerities

Synonyms for austerity

Depending on context, synonyms include asceticism, nonindulgence.

Antonyms for austerity

Common opposites include comfort.

Related Words

Related dictionary entries include nonindulgence, asceticism, stringency, strictness, rigour, rigor.

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