hair shirts
Itchy penance wear
A hair shirt is a coarse garment worn against the skin as a form of religious penance or self-mortification.
The rough fabric, traditionally woven from goat hair, causes persistent discomfort.
Figuratively, a hair shirt is any form of self-imposed suffering or guilt: He's been wearing a hair shirt ever since he missed his father's funeral.
To put on a hair shirt is to punish oneself unnecessarily.
- hessianCoarse woven jute cloth
- burdensWeighty obligations borne
- austerityEnforced economic stringency
- spartan livingDeliberately simple lifestyle
- penanceSelf-mortification for wrongdoing
sackcloth · stoicism · mortification · asceticism · abnegation · guilt · Catholic guilt · atonement · humility · spiritual discipline · vows · self-denial · purification · celibacy · monastic vows · monasticism · flagellation · hermitage
- asceticismabstinence, celibacy, ascetic, austerities, chastity
- medieval churchabbeys, abbey, abbot, abbots, abbess
- Penanceconfession booth, act of contrition, contrition, penitent, public penance
hair shirtssilk robes
Garments of fine thread
Egyptian cotton · fleece · feather beds · down comforters · cashmere
hair shirtshedonism
Pursuit of gratification
self-indulgence · decadence · epicureanism · gratification · worldly pleasures
hair, shirt, hairs, shirts, haired, hairy, hairiness, hairless, shirted