Anchorite

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /ˈæŋ.kə(ˌ)ɹaɪt/

Definitions

1. A person who withdraws from society to live in solitude for religious contemplation and spiritual devotion
2. a solitary religious practitioner who renounces worldly life to pursue spiritual perfection through isolation and ascetic discipline
3. someone who abandons secular society to live alone in devotion to faith and meditative self-denial

Etymology: The Greek word "anachōrētēs" meant someone who had withdrawn from ordinary life, and it was built from "ana-" (back, away) and "chōreō" (to go, withdraw), the same root that gives "chōros," meaning space or place. Early Christian hermits in Egypt and Syria adopted the term for those who left towns and villages to live in solitude, and Latin writers borrowed it as "anachōrēta" and later "anchōrēta." The English word comes through that Latin form. Its earliest English use is generally traced to Old English-era religious writing, and the word spread through medieval Christian contexts, where anchorites were often enclosed in cells attached to churches and lived under a formal rite of seclusion. The "-ite" ending is an English addition, a suffix meaning a person associated with something, so the word is a Greek-derived noun with a modern English ending on top.

Synonyms: hermit, recluse