abstemious

adjective

ab·​ste·​mi·​ous ab-ˈstē-mē-əs 

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 adverb

abstemiousness noun

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 the Latin abstinēre, a combination of abs- and the Latin verb tenēre ("to hold"), while abstemious comes from the Latin abstēmius, which combines abs- with tēm- (a stem found in the Latin tēmētum, "intoxicating beverage," and tēmulentus, "drunken") and the adjectival suffix -ius ("full of, abounding in, having, possessing the qualities of").

Synonyms of abstemious

• ascetic
• temperate
• abstinent

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 on the Web

Some analysts have blamed inflation’s impact on household savings for this more temperate mood, but others see the trend as a warning that young consumers may be more abstemious than older generations. —Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson, semafor.com, 16 Jan. 2026

This approach seems to appeal to an increasingly abstemious generation of young people; the supply of hot, considerate men is also a balm for a heteropessimist age. —Lauren Boersma Harris, New Yorker, 9 Jan. 2026

Some have evolved exceedingly specific diets—diets that would put even the most abstemious human to shame. —Scott Travers, Forbes, 12 Mar. 2025

The solution offered up by some: the sort of abstemious, low-fat, often vegetarian, diets that had been prescribed as lust-control regimens only decades earlier. —Rachel Hope Cleves / Made By History, TIME, 14 Feb. 2025

Word History

Etymology

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-)

First Known Use

1609, in the meaning defined above

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Kids Definition

abstemious

adjective

ab·​ste·​mi·​ous ab-ˈstē-mē-əs 

formal

: not eating and drinking much

abstemiously adverb