hairshirt
English · Thesaurus
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hairshirt
- /ˈhɛəʃɜːt/ UK
- /ˈhɛɹʃɝt/ US
Where it comes from
From hair + shirt.
noun hairshirts · hair shirt · hair-shirt
-
A shirt made of haircloth; especially one worn by ascetics or the penitent.
He is practically a total abstainer and I can affirm that he sleeps on a straw litter and eats the most Spartan food, cold dried grocer’s peas. He wears a hairshirt winter and summer and scourges himself every Saturday.
Similar: cilice, horsehair shirt, sackcloth
- A state of penitence and humility. And when he went on to say, “The curse must be within ourselves,” Muir bequeathed us a hairshirt: the guilty conscience that plagues so many of us when we see what we are doing to the rest of nature.
adjective hair shirt · hair-shirt
- Advocating or adopting a relatively ascetic lifestyle, especially for environmentalist reasons. The gloomy contentions of “hairshirt economists” who want more public and less private spending were assailed today by Robert W. Sarnoff, chairman of the National Broadcasting Company.
Translations
Every language
noun shirt made of haircloth
| 中文 | 粗衣 cūyī, 褐衣 hèyī |
|---|---|
| Deutsch | Büßerhemd, härenes Hemd |
Talk about this word "hairshirt." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/hairshirt. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026. hairshirt. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/hairshirt "hairshirt." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/hairshirt.Cite this
@misc{hairshirt_2026,
title = {hairshirt},
howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
year = {2026},
url = {https://micwyn.com/word/hairshirt},
urldate = {2026-11-06}
}
