hermitage
noun
the habitation of a hermit.
hermitage
1
British
/ ˈhɜːmɪtɪdʒ /
noun
-
the abode of a hermit
-
any place where a person may live in seclusion; retreat
Hermitage
2
British
/ ˈhɜːmɪtɪdʒ /
noun
Hermitage
3
British
/ ˈhɜːmɪtɪdʒ /
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of hermitage
First recorded in 1250–1300; Middle English, from Old French; see hermit, eremite, -age
Explanation
Your summer cabin deep in the woods where you go to think about how funny life is sometimes? If you want to sound fancy, it could be called a hermitage, a dwelling removed from civilization. The noun hermitage has origins in the French word hermite, meaning “hermit,” a person who lives alone, far from society. Hermitage can describe the place where a hermit lives, or a dwelling occupied by an isolated religious group that prefers solitude. But the word is likely to be used more broadly to describe a secluded or remote dwelling, a place of solitude, where you won’t run into a neighbor while mowing the lawn in the backyard.
Vocabulary lists containing hermitage
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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.
See Examples For:
The manuscript opens with the life of Giovanni of Florence, who built the Augustinian hermitage of Santa Lucia in Larniano with help from local farmers.
From Science Daily ● Feb. 2, 2026
Unless somebody at Google HQ has just made a fix, Google Maps will tell you incorrectly that the hermitage and lodge are beyond the road closure.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 29, 2025
For its farewell, Olafsson played it more fluidly, but also with more confidence in the rightness of its hermitage.
From New York Times ● Feb. 8, 2024
Its artefacts and antiquities consultant Nigel Mills suggested the cross could have been connected with the medieval hermitage and chapel at Throckenholt, which is within the Sutton St Edmund parish.
From BBC ● Mar. 5, 2022
Mother last year gave up her floral hermitage in Bethlehem and moved to an apartment in Atlanta, having found a new church of sorts.
From "The Poisonwood Bible" by Barbara Kingsolver
Even at the New Camaldoli Hermitage, a Benedictine monastery above Lucia, the road’s reopening and coming summer season have made a difference.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 4, 2026
They are now regular visitors to the grand Hermitage Museum, housed in the former palace of the Tsars.
From Barron's ● Feb. 18, 2026
In 1892, the Finnish Art Society sent her to St. Petersburg, Russia, to paint copies of works in the Hermitage and then, in 1894, to Vienna and Florence to copy old masters.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 3, 2026
A senior Hermitage employee told the BBC that "a field archaeologist cannot be a citizen of the world; he deals with officials, obtaining permits and has to look for funding and volunteers".
From BBC ● Dec. 25, 2025
A large group of people, perhaps forty to as many as a hundred, from Jackson’s Hermitage plantation and several nearby farms had gathered for a celebration.
From "In the Shadow of Liberty" by Kenneth C. Davis
These ascetics attracted followers, and as a result monasteries and hermitages flourished in less hospitable areas.
From Textbooks ● Apr. 19, 2023
Lizz Pickard of Colorado is staying at one of the hermitages at Solas Bride this week, the latest of several visits.
From Seattle Times ● Feb. 1, 2023
These served as hermitages for certain high-minded urban refugees and as vacation properties for others.
From New York Times ● Oct. 7, 2021
His companions were genuine lay brothers, able to lead him through the marshes and waterways to isolated hermitages and priories, where he would be able to plan his next moves.
From BBC ● Dec. 26, 2020
Or did he live, a solitary being, in one of the surrounding hermitages?
From Glories of Spain by Wood, Charles W. (William)
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.
