Definition

1. Noun:
   • Moderation in eating and drinking: The practice of being moderate and restrained in one's consumption of food and alcohol.
   • Restricted to bare necessities: The quality or practice of living a simple, austere life, avoiding excess or luxury.

Usage Examples

• Noun:
  • His good health was attributed to a lifetime of abstemiousness.
  • The monk's life was characterized by poverty and abstemiousness.

Advanced Usage

• As a character trait: Often used to describe a deliberate and habitual choice of simplicity and self-restraint.
  • Her financial success never diminished her natural abstemiousness; she still lived in a modest apartment.

Variants and Related Words

• Abstemious (adj): Characterized by or showing moderation, especially in eating and drinking.
  • He led an abstemious lifestyle, avoiding rich foods and alcohol.

Synonyms

• Temperance: Moderation or self-restraint, especially in eating and drinking.
• Abstinence: The act of refraining from something, often from indulgence in pleasures like alcohol.
• Austerity: Sternness or severity of manner or attitude; extreme plainness and simplicity of lifestyle or appearance.
• Sobriety: The state of being sober; seriousness, moderation, especially in the use of alcohol.

Antonyms

• Indulgence: The act of allowing oneself to enjoy the pleasure of something.
• Gluttony: Habitual greed or excess in eating.
• Intemperance: Lack of moderation or restraint, especially in drinking alcohol.

Noun

1. moderation in eating and drinking
2. restricted to bare necessities