Recluse

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /ɹɪˈkluːs/

Definitions

1. A person who lives in seclusion and avoids contact with other people
2. Someone who deliberately withdraws from society and chooses to live in isolation away from human interaction
3. A person who intentionally shuns social contact and remains separated from the wider community through voluntary seclusion

Etymology: The word "recluse" carries a striking reversal hidden in its Latin parent. "Reclūdere" literally meant "to open" or "to disclose," built from "re-" and "claudō," "to close" (the same root that gives us "close," "close" in the sense of shutting, and "clause"). A word meaning "open up" gave rise to one describing someone who has shut themselves away from the world, which is one of the neatest semantic flips in English vocabulary. The path ran through Old French, where "reclus" was the past participle of "reclure," meaning "shut up" or "enclosed." The sense of shutting in was not a metaphor at first. A "reclus" was literally someone walled into a cell or hermitage, often a religious figure withdrawn from the world for prayer. The participle carried the idea of being closed away, and the modern sense of a person who voluntarily keeps apart from others grew naturally out of that image of enclosure.

Synonyms: hermit, loner, isolated person, introvert, misanthrope

Antonyms: socialite, extrovert, gregarious person, people person, social butterfly