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Hair shirt   /hɛr ʃərt/   Listen
Hair shirt

noun
1.
An uncomfortable shirt made of coarse animal hair; worn next to the skin as a penance.





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"Hair shirt" Quotes from Famous Books



... against the dilettante antiquarian (who is often as objectionable a character as the unwashed scholar) there are certain archaeologists who wear the modern equivalent of a hair shirt, who walk abroad with pebbles in their shoes, and who speak of the sitting upon an easy-chair as a moral set-back. The strained and posed life which such savants lead is not to be regarded as a rough one; for there is constant luxury in ...
— The Treasury of Ancient Egypt - Miscellaneous Chapters on Ancient Egyptian History and Archaeology • Arthur E. P. B. Weigall
... was thought lovely by every one, and was looked upon as a good exchange for the hair shirt and the scourge. ...
— Pepita Ximenez • Juan Valera
... the town and return them to their pastor with a lecture. He never bought himself any clothes or linen, and wore his garments till they scarcely held together. His linen, thick with darns, rubbed his skin like a hair shirt. Madame de Portenduere, and other good souls, had an agreement with his housekeeper to replace the old clothes with new ones after he went to sleep, and the abbe did not always find out the difference. He ate his food off pewter with iron forks and spoons. When he received ...
— Ursula • Honore de Balzac


Words linked to "Hair shirt" :   shirt


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