Synonyms of hair shirt

hair shirt

noun

as in headache

something that is a source of irritation

the constant need to cut costs was a hair shirt, but one that the theater company had to live with

Synonyms & Similar Words

• headache
• thorn
• nuisance
• frustration
• worry
• rub
• problem
• irritant
• ruffle
• inconvenience
• annoyance
• trial
• pest
• exasperation
• bother
• irk
• bugbear
• vexation
• aggravation
• aggro
• peeve
• insult
• menace
• burden
• predicament
• curse
• discomfort
• hassle
• botheration
• anxiety
• plague
• affront
• cross
• plight
• trouble
• offender
• upset
• pinprick
• pet peeve
• fleabite
• offense
• millstone
• pandora's box
• albatross
• sore
• tribulation
• disturber
• annoyer
• harasser
• mischief
• affliction
• hang-up

Antonyms & Near Antonyms

• pleasure
• joy
• delight

Example Sentences

Recent Examples of hair shirt

Four years later, an America-first cultural crackdown has freed the Met to cast off the hair shirt of reckoning and celebrate its diverse holdings in a spirit of defiance. — Julian Lucas, New Yorker, 30 June 2025

And that gave birth to the worst Wolverine, which also gave birth to the idea that the suit is a hair shirt. — Michael Ordoña, Los Angeles Times, 25 Nov. 2024

Erin Maglaque’s review of a new book on women and sound in Renaissance Italy peels back the layers of a less-talked about form of religious asceticism and control, one where there are no hair shirts or decade-long fasts, just… silence. — Michelle Weber, Longreads, 15 Nov. 2024

The novel aesthetic of Art Nouveau wrapped modernism in the garb of pleasure, instead of in the hair shirt of social obligation and moral uplift. — Regina Cole, Forbes, 1 Jan. 2023

Few people’s utopia involves wearing a hair shirt and giving up culinary pleasures; utopia and sacrifice are, for many, antonyms. — Jan Dutkiewicz, The New Republic, 20 Oct. 2022