hair shirt
1
9.9
- noun
- /hɛr ʃɜrt/
- Literature
:
camisa de pelo
- The monk donned a hair shirt each morning to remind himself of his vow of self-discipline.
- wear a hair shirt
Examples
-
I pulled on my hair shirt again.
Fiction book (1995) -
But if incessant prayers and a hair shirt cannot save him, what can I do?
Fiction book (1999) -
Religious ascetics wear a hair shirt, I carry the pom-poms.
-
They put on hair shirts and act like martyrs.
-
Isabel would be my penance, my hair shirt, and I willingly shouldered the burden of her visit.
Fiction book (1994) -
Many early Christians wore a hair shirt as a symbol of penance and humility.
-
Throughout history, saints have been known to wear a hair shirt to express their devotion and sacrifice.
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase is transparently compositional in that a learner who knows 'hair' and 'shirt' can infer a garment made from hair. However, the conventionalized sense — that it is specifically worn as a form of religious penance or self-discipline — is a cultural/idiomatic extension not predictable from the constituents alone, so the full pragmatic meaning may be missed by a B1 learner.
Etymology
The noun hair shirt comes from a real rough shirt made of animal hair that people wore next to the skin to punish themselves for their sins. That's why today 'hair shirt' can mean a harsh act of 'self-punishment' or anything that causes constant, unpleasant discomfort.