anchoress
Americannoun
Gender
What's the difference between anchoress and anchor? See -ess.
Etymology
Origin of anchoress
First recorded in 1350–1400; late Middle English anchoryse, Middle English ankres, equivalent to ancre anchorite + -es -ess
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Julian lived as an anchoress, a type of religious hermit, and was likely bricked up inside a small stone cell during her 40-odd years of monastic life.
From New York Times ● Jan. 21, 2011
Stop before the house of this anchoress, secluded from the world, and absorbed in pious meditations, a holy and quiet place.
From A Literary History of the English People From the Origins to the Renaissance by Jean Jules Jusserand
Similarly the author of the Ancren Riwle warns his three anchoresses: An anchoress must not become a schoolmistress, nor turn her anchoress-house into a school for children.
From Medieval English Nunneries c. 1275 to 1535 by Eileen Power
Joan Sperry, nun of Clementhorpe, was anchoress at Beeston near Leeds in 1322, and in 1348 Margaret la Boteler, nun of Hampole, was anchoress at the chapel of East Layton, Yorks.
From Medieval English Nunneries c. 1275 to 1535 by Eileen Power
Show me where I can go to be an anchoress, since they will not have me in a convent or anywhere,” and bitterly she wept.
From Grisly Grisell by Charlotte Mary Yonge
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
