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If you are abstemious, you take care not to have too much — above all food and drink, and very often wine. You still eat; you may still take a sip; you just keep the amount small on purpose. It is a formal, slightly old word. You meet it in books about people’s lives, in careful essays, in jokes about strict or monks. Teenagers almost never say it about themselves; they say “I don’t drink much” or “I’m not a big .” Though actually, the Latin inside it is a wine-word first: staying away from strong drink. English later it to food in general, and people now stretch it toward any kind of “I hold back.” That stretch is looser than the centre. It is also not a total ban. A person who never drinks alcohol at all is doing something stricter; an abstemious person is often still having a little, just not a lot. It can sound gently — self-control — or a little dry, depending on who says it and with what smile.
飲食有節制（書面；重點是「少」，不是一定「完全不碰」）
組成From Latin abstēmius “keeping away from wine”: ab, abs “from, away” + a root of tēmētum “strong drink, especially wine or mead” (possibly from a very old word for “dark,” the colour of wine) + English -ous “having that quality.”
同家族的字
- abstemiousnessthe noun: the habit or quality of being abstemious
原始詞典資料5 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，原文照列，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
abstemiousadj/æbˈstiː.mɪ.əs/
- 1
Refraining from freely consuming food or strong drink; sparing in diet; abstinent, temperate.
- It cannot be denied it [the chameleon] is (if not the moſt of any) a very abſtemious animall, and ſuch as by reaſon of its frigidity, paucity of bloud, and latitancy in the winter (about which time the obſervations are often made) will long ſubſist without a viſible ſuſtentation.
- Under his ſpecial eie / Abſtemious I [Samson] grew up and thriv'd amain; / He led me on to mightieſt deeds / Above the nerve of mortal arm / Againſt the uncircumciſ'd, our enemies.
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Sparing in the indulgence of the appetite or passions.
- The Ms had an abstemious sex life; in fourteen years of marriage, they had had sex exactly six times. Mrs. M desired sex and more children, but her husband refused.
- 3
Sparingly used; used with temperance or moderation.
- If the predisposition to the disease has arisen from a plethoric state of the system, or from a turgescence in the vessels of the head, this is to be obviated by bleeding, both generally and topically, but more particularly the latter; an abstemious diet and proper exercise; and by a seton in the neck.
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Marked by, or spent in, abstinence.
- an abstemious life
- If yet Achilles have a Friend, whoſe Care / Is bent to pleaſe him; this Requeſt forbear: / Till yonder Sun deſcend, ah let me pay / To Grief and Anguiſh one abſtemious Day.
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rarePromotive of abstemiousness.
- But ſtranger Virtues yet in Streams we find, / Some change not only Bodies, but the Mind: / […] Clytorian Streams the love of Wine expel, / (Such is the virtue of th' abſtemious Well;) […]
資料來源：英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary（CC BY-SA 4.0）。 原文照列，未經改寫。