Sample Sentences for
abstemious
(editor-reviewed)

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  • The peasants were still living exactly as they had in colonial times, and had not heard of unions, or Sundays off, or the minimum wage; but now delegates from the new-formed parties of the left, disguised as evangelicals, were beginning to infiltrate the haciendas, with a Bible tucked under one armpit and Marxist pamphlets under the other, simultaneously preaching the abstemious life and revolution or death.  (source)
    abstemious = self-restrained
  • She had begun to drink, not heavily—what she drank did not even hesitantly slur her speech—but the three or four mild glasses of whiskey and water she downed during that gray wet afternoon comprised a surprising departure for one who, like Nathan, had been relatively abstemious.  (source)
    abstemious = self-restrained with regard to drinking alcohol
  • Today it's raining, the thin, abstemious rain of early April.  (source)
    abstemious = moderate or meager
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Show 10 more with 2 word variations
  • Be more abstemious, or else ...†  (source)
  • The reader will perceive that I am treating the subject rather from an economic than a dietetic point of view, and he will not venture to put my abstemiousness to the test unless he has a well-stocked larder.†  (source)
    standard suffix: The suffix "-ness" converts an adjective to a noun that means the quality of. This is the same pattern you see in words like darkness, kindness, and coolness.
  • On the other hand, with her he was more than customarily considerate and abstemious.†  (source)
  • "Their singular abstemiousness and temperance," said De Bracy, forgetting the plan which promised him a Saxon bride.†  (source)
  • And so to become inured to a narrow and abstemious life in so doing.†  (source)
  • You know me: I am busy from morning till night and abstemious, so of course I am well.†  (source)
  • Poor devil,' smiled the abstemious Philip.†  (source)
  • Mr. Wrench, generally abstemious, often drank wine rather freely at a party, getting the more irritable in consequence.†  (source)
  • For a healthful diet, he told the abstemious Rush, he believed, like the doctors of his youth, in milk and vegetables, "with very little animal food and still less spiritous liquors."†  (source)
  • Hardy and docile for his genus; abstemious and patient, even for his humble species.†  (source)
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