-əˌsizəm noun
( -s )
1.
a. : the condition, practice, or mode of life of an ascetic : rigorous abstention from self-indulgence
his direction toward a life of asceticism and contemplation was already clear — W.P.Clancy
b. : a disciplinary course of conduct in which certain actions (as contemplation and fasting) are performed for their intellectual, moral, or religious effect
for the Catholic asceticism of poverty the Protestant substituted the asceticism of work — Stringfellow Barr
2. : the doctrine that through the renunciation of the desires of the flesh and of pleasure in worldly things and through self-mortification or self-denial one can subdue his appetites and discipline himself so as to reach a high spiritual or intellectual state
the Greek ideal was far removed from asceticism — G.L.Dickinson