abstemious

adjective ab·ste·mi·ous \ ab-ˈstē-mē-əs \

Updated on: 24 Mar 2018

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

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abstemiously

adverb

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abstemiousness

noun

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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

Despite rumors of a dalliance with a female gymnastics star, Putin publicly presents himself as upright and abstemious.

— Fox News, "Vladimir Putin's power: From mean streets to Kremlin," 17 Mar. 2018
Still, among the more than 333,000 people in the study, light and moderate drinkers were 20% less likely to die from any cause during the study period compared with their completely abstemious peers.

— jeffrey kluger, Time, "The Surprising Secrets to Living Longer — And Better," 15 Feb. 2018
The more powerful Volkswagen GTI with a manual returns 25 city and 33 highway, while the Civic Si rings in at 28/38 mpg and the abstemious Civic Sport trounces the Hyundai with its 29/38 EPA estimates.

— joe lorio, Car and Driver, "2018 Hyundai Elantra GT Sport Manual," 25 Jan. 2018
To the shock and horror of the fiscally abstemious, Trump bragged about his willingness not just to take on large amounts of debt to help build his fortune but also to renege on paying it back in full.

— reihan salam, Slate Magazine, "The Return of the King of Debt," 30 Mar. 2017
Everyone drank it, constantly, with the exception of the rather abstemious Hitler himself.

— laura miller, Slate Magazine, "A new book about the diets of notable women redeems the whole sentimental, self-indulgent genre of food writing.," 12 July 2017
As a result, ladies had to be adept in carrying their gloves while enjoying non-abstemious indoor activities.

— judith martin, The Mercury News, "Miss Manners: Is woman’s rudeness OK if she says ‘I’m rude’?," 19 Mar. 2017
The White House started serving liquor again after the abstemious Carter years.

— lou cannon, New York Times, "Nancy Reagan, an Influential and Protective First Lady, Dies at 94," 6 Mar. 2016
Denis, who died this week at the age of sixty-seven, was resolutely sober, abstemious, but not at all grave.

— tobias wolff, The New Yorker, "Denis Johnson’s Generosity," 28 May 2017

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 tʿmrim "(he/she) is stunned" (perhaps going back to *tēmiro-)

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First Known Use: 1609

in the meaning defined above

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