Citations:abstemious

English citations of abstemious

1. Refraining from freely consuming food or strong drink; sparing in diet; abstinent, temperate. [From early 17th c.]
   • 2003, Gabriel García Márquez, chapter 4, in Edith Grossman, transl., Living to Tell the Tale, New York, N.Y.: Alfred A. Knopf, →ISBN:

     The other duel, which occurred much earlier but was indelible in the town's memory, was the one between Plinio Balmaceda and Dionisiano Barrios. The first was a member of an old and respectable family, an enormous, charming man but also a troublemaker with a wicked temper when he crossed paths with alcohol. […] Dionisiano Barrios was just the opposite: a timid, impaired man, an enemy of brawls and abstemious by nature.