mindmap root((严格)) severe implies standards enforced without indulgence or laxity and may suggest harshness: the ~ dress of the Puritans. stern stresses inflexibility and inexorability of temper or character: a ~ judge who seemed immune to pleas for mercy. austere stresses lack of warmth, color, or feeling and may imply rigorous restraint, simplicity, or self-denial: the view that modern architecture is ~, brutal, and inhumane. ascetic implies abstention from pleasure and comfort or self-indulgence as a measure of self- or spiritual discipline: the ~ life of monastic orders.