hermit

Meaning

1. A religious recluse; someone who lives alone for religious reasons; an eremite.
2. A recluse; someone who lives alone and shuns human companionship.
3. A spiced cookie made with molasses, raisins, and nuts.
4. A hermit crab.
5. Any in the subfamily Phaethornithinae of hummingbirds.

Synonyms

recluse

ascetic

anchorite

eremite

solitudinarian

monk

priest

solitary

wizard

holy man

troglodyte

sage

devotee

yogi

friar

devout person

abstainer

loner

saint

hermit butterfly

anchoret

brother

👨‍👦

cent

clergyman

hero

🦸‍♂️

intellectual

mountainer

wise man

zealot

Buddhist priest

religious man

soldier crab

itinerant priest

mountain folk

mountain ascetic

houseless wanderer

abbot

Hyphenated as

her‧mit

Pronounced as (IPA)

/ˈhɝmɪt/

Etymology

Inherited from Middle English: hermite

In summary

From Middle English hermite, heremite, eremite, from Old French eremite, from Ecclesiastical Latin, Late Latin eremita, from Ancient Greek ἐρημίτης (erēmítēs, “person of the desert”) from ἐρημία (erēmía, “desert, solitude”), from ἔρημος (érēmos) or ἐρῆμος (erêmos, “uninhabited”) plus -ίτης (-ítēs, “one connected to, a member of”). Doublet of eremite. Displaced native Old English ānsetla.