chaste

Borrowed from Old French chaste (“morally pure”), from Latin castus (“pure”).

• enPR: chāst, IPA^(key): /tʃeɪst/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Homophone: chased
• Rhymes: -eɪst

chaste (comparative chaster, superlative chastest)

1. Abstaining from sexual intercourse; celibate.
2. Virginal, innocent, having had no sexual experience.
   • c. 1599–1602, William Shakespeare, The Tragicall Historie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke: […] (Second Quarto), London: Printed by I[ames] R[oberts] for N[icholas] L[ing] […], published 1604, OCLC 760858814, [Act I, scene iii]:

     Then way what loſſe your honor may ſuſtaine / If with too credent eare you liſt his ſongs / Or looſe your hart, or your chaſt treaſure open / To his vnmaſtred importunity.

3. Austere, simple, undecorative.

   a chaste style in composition or art

4. Decent, modest, morally pure.

   a chaste mind;  chaste eyes

Married couples are often exhorted to have “chaste sex” – compare the Vatican encyclical Casti Connubii (Of Chaste Wedlock).

• incel

• chastity

• pure

• 'stache, 'taches, achest, chates, cheats, he-cats, sachet, scathe, she-cat, stache, taches, thecas

From Old French chaste, caste, a semi-learned term derived from Latin castus.

• IPA^(key): /ʃast/

• Audio

  (file)

chaste (plural chastes)

1. chaste; celibate

• chasteté

• “chaste” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

• caste

Semi-learned term derived from Latin castus.

chaste m (oblique and nominative feminine singular chaste)

1. chaste; celibate

• chasteté