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austerity
[ aw-ster-i-tee ]
noun
- austere quality; severity of manner, life, etc.; sternness.
Synonyms: strictness, harshness, rigor, asceticism
Antonyms: leniency
- Usually austerities. ascetic practices:
austerities of monastery life.
- harsh economic policies, as increased taxes or decreased funding for social services, usually adopted in response to government debt or deficits (often used attributively): The legislature tried to reduce the budget deficit with austerity measures that raised the retirement age and cut pension benefits.
Economic growth slowed under austerity.
The legislature tried to reduce the budget deficit with austerity measures that raised the retirement age and cut pension benefits.
austerity
/ ɒˈstɛrɪtɪ /
noun
- the state or quality of being austere
- often plural an austere habit, practice, or act
- reduced availability of luxuries and consumer goods, esp when brought about by government policy
- ( as modifier )
an austerity budget
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Word History and Origins
Origin of austerity1
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Synonym Study
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Example Sentences
Now cities are largely on their own, as austerity and gridlock grip Washington.
Our debates about federal budgets still revolve around degrees of imposed austerity.
Last weekend, demonstrators took to the streets of Italy's capital to protest against government-imposed austerity measures.
A big theme for the last several months has been the end of fiscal austerity.
Walmart is about to teach everybody a lesson in how austerity can affect the consumer economy—and quick.
It now became evident to him that both he and the Brethren had hitherto manifested insufficient austerity in life and doctrine.
Austerity banishes familiarity from family life and engenders constraint.
The extreme plainness of her dress lent an air of austerity to her face, and her features were proud and grave.
This proposal is, in our judgment, a bold attempt to get back the "Principles of 1834" in all their austerity.
She viewed life with a certain austerity, and in literature she had fortified herself against the shocks of time.
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