hermit
UK /ˈhɜːmɪt/ · US /ˈhɝmɪt/ noun
Forms hermits eremite heremit heremite
- 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.
- noun A hermit crab.
- noun Any in the subfamily Phaethornithinae of hummingbirds.
Synonyms
anchorite eremite aloner anchoret Miller of Dee monk recluse shut-in solitary sullen solitudinarian troglodyte
Etymology
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.
Webster’s 1913
- noun A person who retires from society and lives in solitude; a recluse; an anchoret; especially, one who so lives from religious motives.
- noun A beadsman; one bound to pray for another. [Obs.] "We rest your hermits." Shak. Hermit crab (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.
Etymology [OE. ermite, eremite, heremit, heremite, F. hermite, ermite, L. eremita, Gr. Eremite.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “hermit”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details