Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A person who has withdrawn from society and lives a solitary existence; a recluse.
  • noun A cookie made with molasses, raisins, and nuts.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun 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.
  • noun A beadsman; one bound to pray for another.
  • noun In zoology, one of sundry animals of solitary or secluded habits. See the compounds.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A person who retires from society and lives in solitude; a recluse; an anchoret; especially, one who so lives from religious motives.
  • noun obsolete A beadsman; one bound to pray for another.
  • noun (Cookery) A spiced molasses cookie, often containing chopped raisins and nuts.
  • noun (Zoöl.) a marine decapod crustacean of the family Paguridæ. The species are numerous, and belong to many genera. Called also soldier crab. The hermit crabs usually occupy the dead shells of various univalve mollusks. See Illust. of Commensal.
  • noun (Zoöl.) an American thrush (Turdus Pallasii), with retiring habits, but having a sweet song.
  • noun (Zoöl.) a California wood warbler (Dendroica occidentalis), having the head yellow, the throat black, and the back gray, with black streaks.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A religious recluse; someone who lives alone for religious reasons; an eremite.
  • noun A recluse; someone who lives alone and shuns human companionship.
  • noun A spiced cookie made with molasses, raisins, and nuts.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun one retired from society for religious reasons
  • noun one who lives in solitude

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English heremite, from Old French, from Medieval Latin herēmīta, from Late Latin erēmīta, from Greek erēmītēs, from erēmiā, desert, from erēmos, solitary.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Old French eremite, from Latin eremita, from Ancient Greek ἐρημίτης (eremites, "person of the desert") from ἐρημία (eremia, "desert, solitude", from ἔρημος or ἐρῆμος eremos "uninhabited") plus the -ίτης suffix.

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Examples

Comments

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  • 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

    April 20, 2007