Advertisement
Advertisement
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
Word History and Origins
Origin of hair shirt1
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.Example Sentences
And that gave birth to the worst Wolverine, which also gave birth to the idea that the suit is a hair shirt.
“You don’t have to be vegan or take cold showers or wear a hair shirt, but just consuming less things is really helpful for the environment,” she said.
This is a coming-of-age story in which the transition from adolescence to adulthood is akin to swapping one hair shirt for another.
It’s not long before she’s wearing a hair shirt and sleeping on the floor with rats.
“Christ suffered so much that wearing a hair shirt is surely not painful. In my case I already have calluses, 40 years old, you can imagine,” he told local station Exitosa.
Advertisement
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.
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Browse