Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun One who renounces, especially one who renounces the world.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective That renounces; renouncing.
  • noun A person who renounces.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective used especially of behavior

Etymologies

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Examples

  • In contrast to the ideal of the renunciant so central to Jain and Buddhist traditions, Manu provides a paradigm for a human life lived in deep engagement with the world.

    'Birkin' Yoga Sara Elizabeth Ivanhoe 2010

  • The ritual required that the renunciant remove all the external signs of his caste and throw the utensils used in sacrifice into the fire.

    Buddha Armstrong, Karen, 1944- 2001

  • The instinct of destruction is essentially connected with the instinct of creation and indeed must be regarded as an indirect expression of that instinct; for, as one can clearly understand, almost every creative undertaking implies some kind of destructive or at least some kind of suppressive or renunciant act which renders such an undertaking possible.

    The Complex Vision John Cowper Powys 1917

  • Love is understanding, said the poet of Heaven and Hell, and love ennobled through renunciant years shall at the last encompass the world.

    Apologia Diffidentis 1905

  • They cannot believe that this love from the infinite distance wields as mighty a force over renunciant lives as the near flame of passion over their own.

    Apologia Diffidentis 1905

  • The abstract philosophy of the One might seem indeed to have been translated into the terms of a human will in the rigid, disinterested, renunciant career of the emperor Marcus Aurelius, its mortal coldness.

    Plato and Platonism Walter Pater 1866

  • There was here a veritable consecration, hopeful and animating, of the earth's gifts, of old dead and dark matter itself, now in some way redeemed at last, of all that we can touch or see, in the midst of a jaded world that had lost the true sense of such things, and in strong contrast to the wise emperor's renunciant and impassive attitude towards them.

    Marius the Epicurean — Volume 2 Walter Pater 1866

  • The department says only that it "has decided that the renunciant should pay this fee at the visit during which he or she swears the oath of renunciation."

    NYDN Rss THE ASSOCIATED PRESS 2012

  • Protestantur periculum ex frequenti copulâ ephebo imminere; qualiter eum suxerit, quamve subtristis incedat, consideret iterum atque iterum monent; medullas laedi, stomachum hebetari se sentire Reginae renunciant.

    The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic — Volume 2 William Hickling Prescott 1827

  • Looking up, I saw an old man wrapped in the orange robes of a renunciant.

    The Telegram: Local News 2009

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