<p><strong>Noun</strong></p><ul><li>a person who dedicates their life to a pursuit of contemplative ideals and practices extreme self-denial or self-mortification for religious reasons.</li><li>a person who leads an austerely simple life, especially one who abstains from the normal pleasures of life or shuns material satisfaction.</li><li>(in the early Christian church) a monk; hermit.</li><li>Synonyms: cenobite, recluse, anchorite.</li></ul><p><strong>Adjective</strong></p><ul><li>relating to asceticism, the doctrine that one can reach a high spiritual state through the practice of extreme self-denial or self-mortification.</li><li>rigorously abstinent; austere: an ascetic existence.</li><li>Synonyms: plain, frugal, strict.</li><li>Antonyms: self-indulgent.</li><li>exceedingly strict or severe in religious exercises or self-mortification.</li><li>Synonyms: fanatic.</li></ul>