ABSTINENCE • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Abstinence

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/ˈæbstənəns/ Listen

noun

Abstinence n.

The act or practice of abstaining; voluntary forbearance of any action, especially the refraining from an indulgence of appetite, or from customary gratifications of animal or sensual propensities. Specifically, the practice of abstaining from intoxicating beverages, called also total abstinence. "The abstinence from a present pleasure that offers itself is a pain, nay, oftentimes, a very great one."

The practice of self-denial by depriving one's self of certain kinds of food or drink, especially of meat. "Penance, fasts, and abstinence, To punish bodies for the soul's offense."

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Etymology of 'Abstinence'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Abstinence" Quotes from Famous Books

... he needed some compensation for the long abstinence enforced upon him by his habit of holy palmer. And right amply did he make himself amends, and was accounted by dames fair and free the lightsomest and properest Scot who had ever come into the land ...

— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett

... quite well, my dear. It was bad for him, of course; but a strong, healthy boy does not take long to recover from a long walk and some enforced abstinence—There, you can ...

— Sappers and Miners - The Flood beneath the Sea • George Manville Fenn

... principles or feelings of men who, after a long exhausting swim in their clothes, were capable of refusing whisky! For it is to be remembered that, although the time we write of is comparatively recent, that remote island had not been visited by any apostle of temperance or total abstinence in regard to alcohol. Of course Ian had heard something of such principles, but he did not believe in them, and certainly did not practise them. "Hooiver, shentlemen," he added, "if ye wunna tak it—here's wushin' your ...

— The Eagle Cliff • R.M. Ballantyne

... dangerous confidence to the most systematic distrust, from adoration to horror, from asceticism and complete renouncement to their corresponding extremes. The days are past when an irrational, useless abstinence was preached, and put into practice—an abstinence often fully as harmful as habitual excess. We are entitled to all that helps to maintain, or advance, the development of the body; this is our right, but it has its limits; and ...

— The Buried Temple • Maurice Maeterlinck

... English household in war-time, but the wines made up for the lack of elaborate cooking. Sir Philip Heredith and his sister followed their King's example of abstaining from wine during the duration of war, but it was not in accordance with Sir Philip's idea of hospitality to enforce abstinence on their guests, and the men, at all events, sipped the rare old products of the Heredith cellars with unqualified approval, enhanced by painful recollections of the thin war claret and sugared ports of London clubs. Such wine, they felt, was not to be passed ...

— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees

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