Ascetic

[Fr. ascétique; Gr. askētos, from askeō, I exercise. Pertaining to ascetics or asceticism; employed wholly in exercises of devotion and mortification; recluse; austere; rigid. -n. One who retires from the world, and exercises himself in acts of piety, devotion, and self-denial; a hermit; a recluse; one extremely rigid and austere in religious things.