horsehair shirt

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English[edit]

Noun[edit]

horsehair shirt (plural horsehair shirts)

  1. Synonym of hairshirt
    • 2008, Eugene N. Zeigler, When Conscience and Power Meet, →ISBN, page 147:
      I always thought of it as the horsehair shirt of politics: necessary but uncomfortable.
    • 2011, Douglas Boyd, April Queen: Eleanor of Aquitaine, →ISBN:
      Becket took to wearing a horsehair shirt, constantly irritating the skin beneath the fine clothes he still affected, and followed a strict horarium with midnight prayers, rising at dawn to wash the feet of beggars and distribute food to the hungry.
    • 2014, David Mitchell, The Bone Clocks, →ISBN, page 442:
      Strap on your horsehair shirt later. I'm the better transverser, and I'm just nastier.
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