horsehair shirt

plural horsehair shirts

1. Synonym of hairshirt.

   Strap on your horsehair shirt later. I'm the better transverser, and I'm just nastier.

   2014, David Mitchell, The Bone Clocks, →ISBN, page 442

   2 more examples

   I always thought of it as the horsehair shirt of politics: necessary but uncomfortable.

   2008, Eugene N. Zeigler, When Conscience and Power Meet, →ISBN, page 147

   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.

   2011, Douglas Boyd, April Queen: Eleanor of Aquitaine, →ISBN

   Synonyms: hairshirt