fasting

UK/ˈfɑːstɪŋ/US/ˈfæstɪŋ/

nounB2+Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #10,162 of 15,258neutral

Fasting is going without food for a religious reason. A day of fasting, break the fast, fasting and prayer.

Nearly every major religion has it, and the rules differ enormously: Ramadan forbids food and drink from dawn to sunset for a month, and Lent is a partial fast over forty days. Medical fasting before an operation is a different thing with the same name.

Definitions of fasting

1nounfastingGoing without food for a religious reason.B2+
“Yom Kippur is a day of fasting and prayer for Jewish people.”

fasting is a practice.

Where it comes from

Proto-Indo-European
*peh₂ǵ-
Old English
fæst
Middle English
fast
English
fast
English, today
fasting

by surface analysis, fast + -ing. fast comes from Middle English fast, from Old English fæst. From Middle English fast, fest, from Old English fæst (“firm, secure”), from Proto-West Germanic fast, from Proto-Germanic fastuz; see it for cognates and further etymology. The development of “rapid” from an original sense of “secure” apparently happened first in the adverb and then transferred to the adjective; compare hard in expressions like “to run hard”. The original sense of “secure, firm” is now slightly archaic, but retained in the related fasten (“make secure”). Also compare close meaning change from Latin rapiō (“to snatch”) to Latin rapidus (“rapid, quick”), from Irish sciob (“to snatch”) to Irish sciobtha (“quick”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Belief & Ritual

Practise this word

fasting in the wild

Accordingly, during the hours of fasting, Muslims refrain not only from food and drink, but also from all behavior deemed to be sinful in Islam.
Ramadan
During the holy month of Ramadan, fasting is observed between dawn and sunset when the prayer call of the dawn prayer and the sunset prayer is called.
Fasting in Islam
In Hinduism, the primary purpose of fasting on Ekadashi is to gain control over the mind and bodily senses, and channel it towards spiritual progression.
Ekadashi
In addition, there are several health benefits to fasting.
Ekadashi
For Catholics, fasting is the reduction of one's intake of food, while abstinence refers to refraining from something that is good, and not inherently sinful, such as meat.
Fasting and abstinence in the Catholic Church

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

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