hermit

noun

her·​mit ˈhər-mət 

1

a

: one that retires from society and lives in solitude especially for religious reasons : recluse

b

obsolete : beadsman

2

: a spiced molasses cookie

hermitism

ˈhər-mə-ˌti-zəm 

noun

Synonyms

• anchorite
• eremite
• isolate
• recluse
• solitary

Examples of hermit in a Sentence

St. Jerome is said to have spent two years as a hermit in the desert, searching for inner peace.

Recent Examples on the Web

At the time of his death in 1993, Phoenix was nearing the end of filming Dark Blood — a Dutch thriller film in which Phoenix played a hermit who takes a couple hostage while preparing for the end of the world. —Lynsey Eidell, Peoplemag, 31 Oct. 2023

There’s also this spiritual tradition of the desert: like the Desert Fathers, the early Christian hermits who moved into the desert to be ascetics. —Hazlitt, 26 Oct. 2023

Anthony, a hermit who lived in the desert, was not known to have been friendly with animals in the way that Francis was. —Mary Dzon, The Conversation, 3 Oct. 2023

Things take a turn for the worse when a mysterious hermit who haunts the forest invades their home. —Steven Vargas, Los Angeles Times, 27 Sep. 2023

That play was called Abraham, and here, millennia later, Perkins’s sweet, enthusiastic, and—yes, despite his musty morals—heroic hermit is still the soul of the story. —Sara Holdren, Vulture, 22 Sep. 2023

This seemed to spook the notoriously skittish Westerberg, who is a bit of a hermit, like his hero Ray Davies, back into hiding. —Elizabeth Nelson, The New Yorker, 21 Sep. 2023

North Korea, an impoverished hermit state under decades of sanctions, probably needs just about everything. —Fred Weir, The Christian Science Monitor, 13 Sep. 2023

People caught with foreign materials like books and movies, which are banned in the hermit nation, can face severe punishment. —Jessie Yeung, CNN, 15 July 2023

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Word History

Etymology

Middle English heremite, eremite, from Anglo-French, from Late Latin eremita, from Late Greek erēmitēs, from Greek, adjective, living in the desert, from erēmia desert, from erēmos desolate

First Known Use

12th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1a

Phrases Containing hermit

• hermit crab

• hermit crab

Kids Definition

hermit

noun

her·​mit ˈhər-mət 

1

: one that lives apart from others especially for religious reasons : recluse

2

: a spiced molasses cookie