abstainer

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English

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Etymology

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From Middle English absteyner, equivalent to abstain +‎ -er.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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abstainer (plural abstainers)

  1. Agent noun of abstain; one who abstains; especially, one who abstains from something, such as the use of alcohol or drugs, or one who abstains for religious reasons; one who practices self-denial. [First attested around 1350 to 1470.][1]
    • 1920, Sigmund Freud, chapter V, in M. D. Eder, transl., Dream Psychology: Psychoanalysis for Beginners‎[1], New York: The James A. McCann Company:
      To one of my very nervous patients, who was an abstainer, whose fancy was fixed on his mother, and who repeatedly dreamed of climbing stairs accompanied by his mother, I once remarked that moderate masturbation would be less harmful to him than enforced abstinence.
    • 1949, George Orwell, chapter 4, in Nineteen Eighty-Four‎[2]:
      He was a total abstainer and a nonsmoker, had no recreations except a daily hour in the gymnasium, and had taken a vow of celibacy, believing marriage and the care of a family to be incompatible with a twenty-four-hour-a-day devotion to duty.
    • 1990, William Trevor, “Family Sins”, in The Collected Stories, New York: Viking, published 1992, page 1105:
      'Never himself touches a drop of the stuff, you understand. Having been an abstainer since the age of seven or something. A clerky figure even as a child.'

Synonyms

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Derived terms

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Translations

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References

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  1. ^ Lesley Brown, editor-in-chief, William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, editors (2002), “abstainer”, in The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles, 5th edition, Oxford, New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 9.

Anagrams

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