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hermit Definition

her·mit (hʉr′mit)

noun

  1. a person who lives alone in a lonely or secluded spot, often from religious motives; recluse
  2. ☆ a spiced cookie made with nuts and raisins

Etymology: ME hermite < OFr < LL(Ec) eremita < LGr erēmitēs, a hermit < Gr, of the desert < erēmos, desolate < IE base *er-, loose, distant, to separate > Sans *árma- (pl.), fragments, ruins

hermit Related Forms

her·mit′ic adjective or her·mit′i·cal

hermit Synonyms

hermit

n.

holy man, ascetic, anchorite, cenobite, solitary, recluse, eremite, santon, Hieronymite, stylite, hermitress, Marabout, solitarian, pillarist, anchoress, pillar saint; see also ascetic, misanthrope, skeptic.

hermit Usage Examples

Converse of object

  • become: There he was found by Salomon, a weapons engineer who had become a hermit on the ghost world.
  • live: How strict and detached were the lives the holy hermits led in the desert!

Preposition: for

year: He lived as a hermit for twenty-five years, was murdered by robbers and is venerated as a martyr.

Converse of subject

inhabit: These are caves in the cliff face that were inhabited by Christian religious hermits.

Adjective modifier

  • holy: A holy hermit in Pistoia in Tuscany in Italy.
  • Christian: Leo Tolstoy told a story about three Christian hermits living for decades on an island near northern Russia.
  • old: Came across a Hermit Crab - well a rather crabby old hermit, believed last seen out in public twelve years ago.
  • early: Anne Kirkman sent in a song about an early 19th century hermit in Sunderland a rare piece of dialect writing for that town.
  • ancient: St Clement's Isle - a small rocky islet once the home to an ancient hermit lies just offshore of the harbor wall.
  • solitary: Celtic feast day of ' Brynach ' , sixth century Irish man who became a solitary hermit.

Preposition: on

island: After living as hermit on an island near Cannes, both traveled to the East to learn the monastic life.

Modifies a noun

  • crab: The hermit crabs just sat back rented out on.
  • monk: Those Byzantine steps pass one third of the way up, through a fifth-century shriving gate at which a hermit monk heard confessions.

Possessives

  • cave: Only 200 yards from the church is a hermit's cave which preceded the foundation of the Abbey.
  • cell: Was there a chapel here once - a hermit's cell perhaps?
  • life: Darwin, of course, maintained almost a hermit's life at Down.

Preposition: in

  • cave: He later lived as a hermit in a cave nearby.
  • forest: Born in Ireland, he went to Germany and settled as a hermit in a forest near Augsburg.

Noun used with modifier

  • century: Anne Kirkman sent in a song about an early 19th century hermit in Sunderland a rare piece of dialect writing for that town.
  • desert: A truly interesting study of the lives of the desert hermits.