Faith & RitualGreek → English
Ascetic
/əˈsɛtɪk/noun
A person who practises severe self-denial, usually for religious reasons.
The Greek roots
ἀσκητής
askētḗs
one in training, athlete
Literally: “one who trains”
Follow a root:ἀσκητής2 words
The story of the word
ἀσκεῖν meant to practise or exercise, and an ἀσκητής was an athlete in training. Christian writers moved the whole vocabulary of the gymnasium out into the Egyptian desert, so the monk became the man in training and his fasting became a regime. Greek readers of the New Testament could still hear the athletics in it; English readers, who got the word in the 1640s, never could.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
- First recorded
- 1640s
Same family
asceticismascesis
In a sentence
He lives like an ascetic, one chair and a bed and no curtains.