Definition of "hairshirt" [hairshirt]

• A shirt made of haircloth; a cilice; especially one worn by ascetics or the penitent (noun)
• Advocating or adopting a relatively ascetic lifestyle, especially for environmentalist reasons. (adjective)

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• "I would call a kind of hairshirt need, a-- a need to kind of punish himself in -- in living in very, very difficult ways."
• "Amidst a general acceptance of the cash crisis afflicting the ICA as an accident of the recession, and a rush into headlong 'hairshirt' institutional self-critique as a means to deflect real scrutiny, JJ Charlesworth uncovers a catalogue of avoidable mistakes and the free-market, lifestyle thinking behind them"
• "That doesn't mean "hairshirt" environmentalism, where the goal is for neo-puritans to denounce people for immorality and trumpet their own superiority."