recluse

noun

1. a person who lives in seclusion or apart from society, often for religious meditation.
2. Also incluse. a religious voluntary immured in a cave, hut, or the like, or one remaining within a cell for life.

adjective re·cluse [ri-kloos, rek-loos] /rɪˈklus, ˈrɛk lus/. Also re·clu·sive.

3. shut off or apart from the world; living in seclusion, often for religious reasons.
4. characterized by seclusion; solitary.

noun

1. a person who lives in seclusion
2. a person who lives in solitude to devote himself to prayer and religious meditation; a hermit, anchorite, or anchoress

adjective

3. solitary; retiring

n.

c.1200, “person shut up from the world for purposes of religious meditation,” from Old French reclus (fem. recluse) “hermit, recluse,” also “confinement, prison; convent, monastery,” noun use of reclus (adj.) “shut up,” from Late Latin reclusus, past participle of recludere “to shut up, enclose” (but in classical Latin “to throw open”), from Latin re-, intensive prefix, + claudere “to shut” (see close (v.)).