hermit

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   A person who lives alone and avoids the company of others.

   After his wife died, he became a hermit and rarely left the house.

2. 2
   noun

   A person who lives alone for religious reasons.

   The hermit had spent forty years praying in a cave in the mountains.

From Middle English hermite, heremite, eremite, from Old French eremite, from Ecclesiastical Latin, Late Latin eremita, from Ancient Greek ἐρημίτης (erēmítēs, “person of the desert”) from ἐρημία (erēmía, “desert, solitude”), from ἔρημος (érēmos) or ἐρῆμος (erêmos, “uninhabited”) plus -ίτης (-ítēs, “one connected to, a member of”). Doublet of eremite. Displaced native Old English ānsetla.

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