seclude
Americanverb (used with object)
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to place in or withdraw into solitude; remove from social contact and activity, etc.
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to isolate; shut off; keep apart.
They secluded the garden from the rest of the property.
verb
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to remove from contact with others
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to shut off or screen from view
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Etymology
Origin of seclude
1425–75; late Middle English < Latin sēclūdere, equivalent to sē- se- + -clūdere, combining form of claudere to close
Explanation
When you seclude someone, you separate them from other people. A Buddhist monk might seclude himself in a remote place to meditate alone for several weeks. Most people use the verb seclude to talk about shutting themselves away from society or keeping themselves separate from others. An eccentric family might seclude itself from the neighbors, for example. The root is Latin, secludere, which means "shut off or confine," from se, "apart" and cludere, "to shut." Originally, seclude was used to mean "to enclose or confine," and by the 1620s it also meant "to keep from public view."
Vocabulary lists containing seclude
Case Closed: Clud, Clus
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se (apart)
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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.
The gated front entry, mature trees and landscaping seclude the house, the only free-standing dwelling on the block.
From Washington Post • Feb. 25, 2022
“I realised that if I was able to seclude myself and rest, the gentle high would progress into a dreamlike state where I would experience visions,” she writes in Period Power.
From The Guardian • May 29, 2019
At one point, he suggests that to help make up her mind she go away from London, where they live, and seclude herself in a cottage in Wales.
From The New Yorker • Aug. 22, 2018
It’s a different world here in Santa Cruz, an easier place to seclude yourself, to find some anonymity.
From New York Times • Jun. 26, 2018
Was it possible to guard a woman more strictly, to seclude her more utterly, than he had guarded and secluded Ernestine?
From Only a Girl: or, A Physician for the Soul. by Hillern, Wilhelmine von
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.
