chaste

From Middle English chaste, from Old French chaste (“morally pure”), from Latin castus (“pure”).

• enPR: chāst, IPA^(key): /t͡ʃeɪst/
• (rarely) IPA^(key): /t͡ʃæst/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Homophone: chased
• Rhymes: -eɪst
• Rhymes: -æst

chaste (comparative chaster, superlative chastest)

1. Abstaining from immoral or unlawful sexual intercourse.
2. Virginal, innocent, having had no sexual experience.
   • c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, The Tragicall Historie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke: […] (Second Quarto), London: […] I[ames] R[oberts] for N[icholas] L[ing] […], published 1604, →OCLC, [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).

• celibate
• incel

• chaste tree
• chastity

• pure

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

Inherited 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 Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

• caste

Semi-learned term derived from Latin castus.

chaste m (oblique and nominative feminine singular chaste)

1. chaste; celibate

• chasteté