anchorite

[ang-kuh-rahyt]

noun

1. a person who has retired to a solitary place for a life of religious seclusion; hermit.

anchorite

/ ˈæŋkəˌraɪt /

noun

1. a person who lives in seclusion, esp a religious recluse; hermit

Other Word Forms

• anchoress noun
• anchoritic adjective
• anchoritically adverb
• anchoritism noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of anchorite¹

First recorded in 1400–50; late Middle English anc(h)orite, anachorite, ancorite, conflation of Middle English ancre (from Old English ancra, ancer ) and Old French anacorite or Late Latin anachōrīta, anachōrēta, from Late Greek anachōrētḗs, agent noun derivative of anachōreîn “to withdraw” + -tēs agent suffix

Word History and Origins

Origin of anchorite¹

C15: from Medieval Latin anchorīta, from Late Latin anachōrēta, from Greek anakhōrētēs, from anakhōrein to retire, withdraw, from khōra a space

Example Sentences

Many writers are deskbound anchorites; Kurkov is a compulsively social animal with a deep bench of illustrious friends.

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But Hardulph would not have been a hermit in the colloquial sense; he would have been an anchorite, meaning that he would have been anchored to the church and may have had disciples, Simons explained.

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We see Moore and her mother living together in Greenwich Village “like anchorites.”

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They’ve just been walled in, closed off, “like those anchorites” — medieval ascetics — “who used to build themselves into the walls of churches and see insane, terrifying visions and write about them.”

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In the 1970s, commercial plywood caught Judd’s eye and he used it in a suite of boxy sculptures that look like a cross between shipping containers and anchorite cells.

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Related Words

• abbot 
• friar 
• priest