austerity

From Ancient Greek αὐστηρότης (austērótēs, “bitter, harsh”). Morphologically austere +‎ -ity.

• (US) IPA^(key): /ɔˈstɛɹɪti/, enPR: ôstĕr′ǐtē

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austerity (countable and uncountable, plural austerities)

1. Severity of manners or life; extreme rigor or strictness; harsh discipline.
   • 1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 23, in The History of Pendennis. […], volumes (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1849–1850, →OCLC:

     The most rigid and noted of the English ladies resident in the French capital acknowledged and countenanced her; the virtuous Lady Elderbury, the severe Lady Rockminster, the venerable Countess of Southdown—people, in a word, renowned for austerity, and of quite a dazzling moral purity:—so great and beneficent an influence had the possession of ten (some said twenty) thousand a year exercised upon Lady Clavering’s character and reputation

2. Freedom from adornment; plainness; severe simplicity.
   • 2021 October 20, Dr Joseph Brennan, “A key part of our diverse railway heritage”, in RAIL, number 942, page 56:

     The war-torn first half of the 20th century, together with the railway grouping of 1923, ushered in further austerity in design.

3. (economics) A policy of deficit-cutting, which by definition requires lower spending, higher taxes, or both.
   • 2012 April 23, Angelique Chrisafis, “François Hollande on top but far right scores record result in French election”, in the Guardian‎:

     He said France clearly wanted to "close one page and open another". He reiterated his opposition to austerity alone as the only way out of Europe's crisis: "My final duty, and I know I'm being watched from beyond our borders, is to put Europe back on the path of growth and employment."

4. (obsolete) Sourness and harshness to the taste.

• (antonym(s) of “severity of manners or life”): comfort

• austere
• austerely
• austeriate

• “austerity”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

Unadapted borrowing from English austerity.

austerity f (invariable)

1. austerity