HERMIT

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does hermit mean? 

• HERMIT (noun)
  The noun HERMIT has 2 senses:

1. one retired from society for religious reasons

2. one who lives in solitude

  Familiarity information: HERMIT used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• HERMIT (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

One retired from society for religious reasons

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

anchorite; hermit

Hypernyms ("hermit" is a kind of...):

eremite (a Christian recluse)

Derivation:

hermitic; hermitical (characterized by ascetic solitude)

Sense 2

Meaning:

One who lives in solitude

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

hermit; recluse; solitary; solitudinarian; troglodyte

Hypernyms ("hermit" is a kind of...):

lone hand; lone wolf; loner (a person who avoids the company or assistance of others)

Instance hyponyms:

John the Baptist; St. John the Baptist ((New Testament) a preacher and hermit and forerunner of Jesus (whom he baptized); was beheaded by Herod at the request of Salome)

Derivation:

hermitic; hermitical (characterized by ascetic solitude)

 Context examples 

We heard of you as living the life of a hermit among your bees and your books in a small farm upon the South Downs.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

My hunger, sharp before, was, if not satisfied, appeased by this hermit's meal.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

The hermit frowned at the untoward noise which broke upon his prayers, but his brow relaxed as he looked upon the broad silver piece which John held out to him.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I used at first to wonder what comfort Traddles found in drawing skeletons; and for some time looked upon him as a sort of hermit, who reminded himself by those symbols of mortality that caning couldn't last for ever.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Sometimes I am fairly sure I am out of water, and that I should belong in Paris, in Grub Street, in a hermit's cave, or in some sadly wild Bohemian crowd, drinking claret,—dago-red they call it in San Francisco,—dining in cheap restaurants in the Latin Quarter, and expressing vociferously radical views upon all creation.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

He broke off acquaintance with all the gentry, and shut himself up like a hermit at the Hall.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Three large stones formed a rough cot by the roadside, and beside it, basking in the sun, sat the hermit, with clay-colored face, dull eyes, and long withered hands.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)