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hair shirt
noun
- a garment of coarse haircloth, worn next to the skin as a penance by ascetics and penitents.
- self-imposed punishment, suffering, sacrifice, or penance.
hair shirt
noun
- a shirt made of haircloth worn next to the skin as a penance
- a secret trouble or affliction
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Word History and Origins
Origin of hair shirt1
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Idioms and Phrases
A self-imposed punishment or penance, as in I apologized a dozen times—do you want me to wear a hair shirt forever? This term, mentioned from the 13th century on, alludes to wearing a coarse, scratchy hair shirt, the practice of religious ascetics. Its figurative use dates from the mid-1800s.Discover More
Example Sentences
Had she not openly asserted her belief that he wore a hair shirt and scourged himself in private?
England, apparently with a sigh of relief, lays aside her hair shirt, and proves that she has been wearing a silk vest under it.
They found under his outer garments a hair shirt, and then they were half convinced he must have been a godly man.
On the same day he had put on a hair shirt, and he had never since removed either the one or the other.
He had left Petrograd dressed as a pilgrim, with hair-shirt and staff complete, and as such he posed to everybody.
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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
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