chaste
English
Etymology
Borrowed from Old French chaste (“morally pure”), from Latin castus (“pure”).
Pronunciation
- enPR: chāst, IPA(key): /tʃeɪst/
Audio (US) (file) - Homophone: chased
- Rhymes: -eɪst
Adjective
chaste (comparative chaster, superlative chastest)
- Abstaining from sexual intercourse; celibate.
- Virginal, innocent, having had no sexual experience.
- c. 1599–1602, William Shakespeare, The Tragicall Historie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke: […] (Second Quarto), London: Printed by I[ames] R[oberts] for N[icholas] L[ing] […], published 1604, OCLC 760858814, [Act I, scene iii]:
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- Austere, simple, undecorative.
- a chaste style in composition or art
- Decent, modest, morally pure.
- a chaste mind; chaste eyes
Usage notes
Married couples are often exhorted to have “chaste sex” – compare the Vatican encyclical Casti Connubii (Of Chaste Wedlock).
Hyponyms
Derived terms
Translations
abstaining from sexual intercourse
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innocent — see innocent
celibate — see celibate
austere — see austere
modest — see modest
- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout#Translations.
See also
French
Etymology
From Old French chaste, caste, a semi-learned term derived from Latin castus.
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /ʃast/
Audio (file)
Related terms
Further reading
- “chaste” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).
Old French
Alternative forms
Related terms
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