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Definition of abstemious
formal
: marked by restraint especially in the eating of food or drinking of alcohol an abstemious drinker; also : reflecting such restraint an abstemious diet
abstemiously
adverbabstemiousness
nounExplore M-W
abstemious was our Word of the Day on 01/17/2017. Hear the podcast!
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Examples of abstemious in a Sentence
She is known as an abstemious eater and drinker.
being abstemious diners, they avoid restaurants with all-you-can-eat buffets
Recent Examples of abstemious from the Web
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Denis, who died this week at the age of sixty-seven, was resolutely sober, abstemious, but not at all grave.
These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'abstemious'. Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Did You Know?
Abstemious and "abstain" look alike, and both have meanings involving self-restraint or self-denial. So they must both come from the same root, right? Yes and no. Both get their start from the Latin prefix abs-, meaning "from" or "away," but "abstain" traces to "abs-" plus the Latin verb tenēre (meaning "to hold"), while "abstemious" gets its "-temious" from a suffix akin to the Latin noun temetum, meaning "intoxicating drink."
Origin and Etymology of abstemious
borrowed from Latin abstēmius “refraining from wine, careful with one's means,” from abs- (variant of ab- ab- before c- and t-) + -tēmius, from a base tēm- “intoxicating” (also in tēmētum “intoxicating beverage,” tēmulentus “drunken”); if going back to an Indo-European root *temH-, akin to Sanskrit tāmyati “(he/she) is stunned, loses consciousness, is exhausted,” tamayati “(he/she) chokes (someone),” Armenian tcmrim “(he/she) is stunned” (perhaps going back to *tēēmiro-)
ABSTEMIOUS Defined for English Language Learners
abstemious
playDefinition of abstemious for English Language Learners
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: not eating and drinking too much
Learn More about abstemious
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Thesaurus: All synonyms and antonyms for abstemious Spanish Central: Translation of abstemious Nglish: Translation of abstemious for Spanish speakers Britannica English: Translation of abstemious for Arabic speakers
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