Liberal Dictionary English Dictionary
noun
- a person who lives in seclusion or apart from society, often for religious meditation.
- 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.
- shut off or apart from the world; living in seclusion, often for religious reasons.
- characterized by seclusion; solitary.
noun
- a person who lives in seclusion
- a person who lives in solitude to devote himself to prayer and religious meditation; a hermit, anchorite, or anchoress
adjective
- solitary; retiring
1590s, from recluse + -ive. Recluse alone formerly served also as an adjective in English (early 13c.).
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.)).