hermit

American  

[hur-mit] / ˈhɜr mɪt /

noun

• hermits
  plural

1. a person who has withdrawn to a solitary place for a life of religious seclusion.

   Synonyms:

   cenobite, anchorite, monastic, eremite

2. any person living in seclusion; recluse.

3. Zoology. an animal of solitary habits.

4. Ornithology. any of numerous hummingbirds of the genera Glaucis and Phaethornis, having curved bills and dull-colored rather than iridescent plumage.

5. a spiced molasses cookie often containing raisins or nuts.

6. Obsolete. a beadsman.

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hermit British  

/ ˈhɜːmɪt /

noun

1. one of the early Christian recluses

2. any person living in solitude

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• hermitry
  noun
• hermitship
  noun
• hermit-like
  adjective
• hermitic
  adjective
• hermitical
  adjective
• hermitish
  adjective
• hermitlike
  adjective
• unhermitic
  adjective
• unhermitical
  adjective
• hermitically
  adverb
• unhermitically
  adverb

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• hermits
  plural

Etymology

Origin of hermit

1175–1225; Middle English ermite, hermite, heremite < Old French < Late Latin erēmīta < Greek erēmītḗs living in a desert, equivalent to erḗm ( ia ) desert (derivative of erêmos desolate) + -ītēs -ite ¹

Explanation

You hear about hermits more often than you meet one, and that’s because a hermit is someone who likes to be alone, far from people, sometimes because of their religious beliefs or maybe because they simply want some privacy. Hermits like living solo, alone in the woods, up in a mountain, or sometimes they live in a city without hardly ever leaving their apartment. The root of the word is the Greek erēmos, meaning “solitary.” A life of solitude isn’t for everyone, but a hermit chooses it for any number of reasons. For example, being able to honor their religious beliefs more fully or hating all of humanity are two possible motivations to become a hermit.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

hermit hermits

The first were spartan nooks, just large enough to shelter one hermit from the elements.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 31, 2026

Wildlife enthusiast Fred, who had just turned six at the time of filming in the summer and autumn of 2024, enjoyed spotting scorpions, snakes, monkeys, monitor lizards, eagles, hermit crabs, geckos and flying lemurs.

From BBC ● Feb. 14, 2026

Much less familiar is Guglielmo of Malavalle, a twelfth century hermit venerated by the Augustinians for defeating a dragon using a simple wooden staff shaped like a pitchfork.

From Science Daily ● Feb. 2, 2026

And there's a deep-sea hermit crab, living not inside a shell, but a sea star the team can't immediately identify.

From Barron's ● Jan. 26, 2026

I was a Hello Girl and now I am here, a hermit in a boardinghouse, protected by a disheveled fortress of my dirty clothes and empty tins, and Theo knows absolutely nothing.

From "The Brightwood Code" by Monica Hesse

There are no desert hermits in our tradition, only moms and dads tending home fires.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 11, 2025

Augustinian hermits in della Francesca’s native Borgo San Sepolcro commissioned the altarpiece in 1454, and it hung in its original church for less than 100 years.

From Seattle Times ● Mar. 19, 2024

Many isolated hermits continued to dwell in northern Egypt.

From Textbooks ● Apr. 19, 2023

Nature lovers aren’t all hermits, hermits aren’t necessarily survivalists, and survivalists don’t have to be terrorists, and they certainly aren’t all intellectuals.

From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 16, 2022

The women were going to hike ten miles through the wilderness to see some hermit nuns who wouldn’t be hermits anymore once they got there.

From "Habibi" by Naomi Shihab Nye

Related Words

• recluse