Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A person who has withdrawn from society and lives a solitary existence; a recluse.
- n. A spiced cookie made with molasses, raisins, and nuts.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. One who dwells alone, or with but few companions, in a desert or other solitary place, for religious meditation, or from a desire to avoid society. See anchoret.
- n. A beadsman; one bound to pray for another.
- n. In zoology, one of sundry animals of solitary or secluded habits. See the compounds.
Wiktionary
- n. A religious recluse; someone who lives alone for religious reasons; an eremite.
- n. A recluse; someone who lives alone and shuns human companionship.
- n. A spiced cookie made with molasses, raisins, and nuts.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A person who retires from society and lives in solitude; a recluse; an anchoret; especially, one who so lives from religious motives.
- n. A beadsman; one bound to pray for another.
- n. A spiced molasses cookie, often containing chopped raisins and nuts.
WordNet 3.0
- n. one retired from society for religious reasons
- n. one who lives in solitude
Etymologies
- Middle English heremite, from Old French, from Medieval Latin herēmīta, from Late Latin erēmīta, from Greek erēmītēs, from erēmiā, desert, from erēmos, solitary.
Examples
“The Underneath acknowledges that the hermit is evil.”
“A certain hermit worshipped on a certain mountain, whither resorted a pair of pigeons; and the worshipper was wont to make two parts of his daily bread, — And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased saying her permitted say.”
“Jabaster, too, realizes the need for such a balance although he himself has lived in hermit-like, mystical isolation, apparently only awaiting the arrival of the deliverer.”
“Are you the man they call the hermit of the island?" asked Harry.”
“Then she called the hermit: Sir Ulfin, I am a gentlewoman that would speak with the knight which is with you.”
“At any time the word hermit was enough to transport him.”
“A writer in the "Atlantic" [1] gravely tells us the wood thrush is sometimes called the hermit, and then, after describing the song of the hermit with great beauty and correctness, coolly ascribes it to the veery!”
In the Catskills Selections from the Writings of John Burroughs
“If you call a hermit crab a conch, it's not pedantic to point out the error.”
“So far as we know, there's only one house within several miles of this place," explained Frank, "and that belongs to the man they call a hermit because he keeps to himself, and never goes to town -- Aaron”
“In our next hour, Christiane Amanpour takes a rare look inside the so-called hermit kingdom.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘hermit’.
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probablyankita's list
Words are all I have to take your heart away
apartheid, techno-klutz, logorrheic, gordian knot, anodyne, odor of sanctity, finders keepers, foot-in-mouth dis..., dutch uncle, masquerade, smoke signals, furtive glance and 320 more...
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Unknown
coalition, cabinet, tweet, defuse, steep, ancestral, mindset, breach, infraction, egregious, curb, backbite and 280 more...
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What is a man?
Masculine archetypes and stereotypes, glorifications and vilifications.
This is in line with Femmesque, though narrower in its aim. I want simply the loaded nouns that denote a man's...cuckold, provider, rapist, messiah, hero, demon lover, animus, the man in the bu..., loser, mr. right, stud, bloke and 18 more...
oroboros Even hermits get to dance; that's why your brain HAS a right and left foot.
(One guy would hum to himself:
"Ho, ho,
Where 'er I go,
I join myself
Out on the floor.")
--Jan Cox
Apr 20, 2007