fasting

fasting
    n 1: abstaining from food [syn: {fast}, {fasting}]
    

Fast \Fast\, v. i. [imp. & p. p. {Fasted}; p. pr. & vb. n.
   {Fasting}.] [AS. f[ae]stan; akin to D. vasten, OHG.
   fast[=e]n, G. fasten, Icel. & Sw. fasta, Dan. faste, Goth.
   fastan to keep, observe, fast, and prob. to E. fast firm.]
   1. To abstain from food; to omit to take nourishment in whole
      or in part; to go hungry.
      [1913 Webster]

            Fasting he went to sleep, and fasting waked.
                                                  --Milton.
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   2. To practice abstinence as a religious exercise or duty; to
      abstain from food voluntarily for a time, for the
      mortification of the body or appetites, or as a token of
      grief, or humiliation and penitence.
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            Thou didst fast and weep for the child. --2 Sam.
                                                  xii. 21.
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   {Fasting day}, a fast day; a day of fasting.
      [1913 Webster]
    

59 Moby Thesaurus words for "fasting":
      Albigensianism, Catharism, Day of Atonement, Franciscanism, Lenten,
      Sabbatarianism, Trappism, Waldensianism, Yoga, Yom Kippur,
      abstinence, anchoritic monasticism, anchoritism, asceticism,
      austerity, cold purgatorial fires, dog-hungry, empty, eremitism,
      famished, famishing, flagellation, hair shirt, half-famished,
      half-starved, hungering, hungry, lustration, maceration,
      mendicantism, monachism, monasticism, mortification, peckish,
      penance, penitence, penitential act, penitential exercise,
      pinched with hunger, purgation, purgatory, puritanism,
      quadragesimal, ravening, ravenous, repentance, rigor,
      sackcloth and ashes, self-denial, self-mortification, sharp-set,
      starved, starving, uneating, unfed, unfilled, voluntary poverty,
      voracious, wolfish