austere

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English austere,^[2][3][4] also austerne, a form the OED and Weekley put down to association with stern,^[5][6] borrowed from Anglo-Norman auster, Old French austere (“stern, severe, merciless”),^[5][7][8] and directly borrowed from Latin austērus (“dry, harsh, sour, tart”),^[5][7][8] from Ancient Greek αὐστηρός (austērós, “harsh, rough, bitter”),^[5][9] especially "making the tongue dry".^[7][8][6] The Greek adjective comes, the OED suggests through an unattested *αὐστός (*austós), from αὔειν (aúein, “to dry”) and αὖος (aûos, “dry”),^[5][9] from Proto-Indo-European *saus- (“dry”), the source of sere too.^[8][5][7] Old French has it from about 1170.^[5] Compare Spanish austero, Portuguese austero and Italian austero.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Stern, harsh, fierce: Barnhart dates it before 1338, in Mannyng's Chronicle,^[7] the text in which the OED finds it of an army, in a later manuscript.^[5] Etymonline says early 14th century.^[8] For the sense of stern in manner or severe in judgement, the OED has about 1384, in the Wycliffite Bible.^[5]

Semantic evolution

In Greek the word was first used of fruit and wine that dried the tongue, and then, by metaphor, of harsh people and things.^[8][6] English took the figurative sense first, and the literal one later: "sour, astringent" is recorded from before 1425 in the OED,^[5] from the 1540s in Etymonline,^[8] and is now rare.^[5][8] The sense of strict self-denial appears in Wyclif's works, before 1425,^[5] and compare the French use of 1486 for a stringently moral person.^[5] By about 1580 the word could be used of rugged land,^[5] and in 1581 of something simple and free from luxury,^[5] a sense Etymonline dates by the 1590s;^[8] French had used it for simple, plain concepts in 1567.^[5] Milton's Paradise Lost (1667) has it for grave or serious,^[5][10][8] and H. More (1680) used it of a muted colour.^[5] Johnson (1755) gives only "severe, harsh, rigid" and "sour of taste".^[11] A Lanarkshire book on plants of 1831 still applied it to the taste of a fruit.^[12] A noun for a bitter or astringent substance existed from 1684 to 1761.^[5]

Timeline

• before 1338 – of an army, fierce, savage (until 1440).^[5][7]
• c. 1384 – stern in manner, severe in judgement.^[5]
• before 1425 – strict in self-denial, stringently moral.^[5]
• before 1425 – sour, astringent in taste.^[5]
• c. 1580 – of land, rugged, forbidding.^[5]
• 1581 – severely simple, free from luxury.^[5]
• 1667 – grave, serious, in Milton.^[5]
• 1684 – noun, a bitter or astringent substance (until 1761).^[5]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Stern and cold in manner or appearance: an austere headmistress.^[13][14][5]
2. Grave and serious; unsmiling: an austere gaze.^[13][14]
3. Strictly self-disciplined and morally rigid; ascetic: the austere life of the desert monks.^[13][14][5]
4. Severely simple and plain; without luxury or ornament: an austere little kitchen.^[13][14][5]
5. Of land, rugged and bleak.^[5]
6. Of taste, sour or astringent (now rare).^[14][5][10]

Word family

• austerely
• austereness
• unaustere
• austerity

Related words

• sere

Usage notes

Dictionary.com compares it with bleak, spartan and stark, all of which suggest a lack of ornament or comfort: austere usually implies deliberately avoiding luxury or ease, whereas bleak adds a forbidding coldness and spartan a stern discipline.^[15]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
3. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
4. ^ Stratmann, Francis Henry (1891), A Middle-English Dictionary, revised by Henry Bradley, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
7. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
9. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
10. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
12. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
13. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
14. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
15. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House