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Webster 1913 Edition
Anchorite
An′cho-ret
,An′cho-rite
Noun.
[F.
anachorète
, L. anachoreta
, fr. Gr. [GREEK], fr. [GREEK] to go back, retire; [GREEK] + [GREEK] to give place, retire, [GREEK] place; perh. akin to Skr. hā
to leave. Cf. Anchor
a hermit.] One who renounces the world and secludes himself, usually for religious reasons; a hermit; a recluse.
[Written by some authors
anachoret
.] Our Savior himself . . . did not choose an
anchorite’s
or a monastic life, but a social and affable way of conversing with mortals. Boyle.
Webster 1828 Edition
Anchorite
AN'CHORET
, or AN'CHORITE,Noun.
A hermit; a recluse; one who retires from society into a desert or solitary place, to avoid the temptations of the world and devote himself to religious duties. Also a monk, who, with the leave of the abbot, retires to a cave or cell, with an allowance from the monastery, to live in solitude.
Definition 2024
anchorite
anchorite
English
Alternative forms
Noun
anchorite (plural anchorites)
- One who lives in isolation or seclusion, especially for religious reasons.
- 1918, W. B. Maxwell, chapter 16, in The Mirror and the Lamp:
- The preposterous altruism too! […] Resist not evil. It is an insane immolation of self—as bad intrinsically as fakirs stabbing themselves or anchorites warping their spines in caves scarcely large enough for a fair-sized dog.
- 1950, Will Durant, The Age of Faith, Simon and Schuster, page 792.
- About 1150 some Palestinian anchorites adopted the eremitical rule of St. Basil, and spread throughout Palestine; when the Moslems captured the Holy Land these "Carmelites" migrated to Cyprus, Sicily, France, and England.
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Related terms
- anchoress (feminine gender)
Synonyms
Translations
one who lives in seclusion
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