anchorite

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English ancorite,^[2][3] borrowed from Middle French anachorite and directly borrowed from Medieval Latin anachōrēta,^[4] and most dictionaries give the Medieval Latin form as anchorīta.^{[5][2][6][7][8][9][10]} The first syllables were remodelled after the older word for a hermit, ancre,^[4][3] or, according to Merriam-Webster Unabridged, under the influence of Latin anchora (“anchor”).^[2] The source is Ancient Greek ἀναχωρητής (anakhōrētḗs, “hermit, recluse, literally one who has retired”),^[4][6][11] an agent noun from ἀναχωρέω (anakhōréō, “to retire, retreat”),^[4][6][11] from ἀνά (aná, “back”) and χωρέω (khōréō, “to withdraw, give place”),^[6][11][12] from χῶρος (khôros, “place, space”).^[6][11][2] Etymonline and the American Heritage Dictionary take that to Proto-Indo-European *ghē- (“to release, let go”).^[6][5] The word has parallels in Spanish anacoreta, Italian anacoreta and German Anachoret.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

A person who has withdrawn from the world, usually for religious reasons: about 1435, in Lydgate's Life of Saints Edmund and Fremund,^[4] about 1433 in Barnhart.^[8] Etymonline dates the word to the mid-15th century.^[6]

Semantic evolution

English already had a word for such a recluse, ancra, recorded before 900,^[8] from Old Irish anchara,^[7] or, according to Barnhart, shortened from Late Latin.^[8] Middle English ancre, also anker, was common,^[13] and Weekley notes the Ancren Riwle explaining the name, wrongly, as a metaphor of nuns as anchors of Holy Church.^[12] Anchorite replaced the older word in the 1500s,^[8] though Weekley finds it surviving to about 1600, and in Hamlet.^[12] From 1570 the word, often as anachoret, was used for hermits of the early Eastern Church;^[4][14] Etymonline ties it to Christian hermits of the Eastern deserts in the two centuries after about 300.^[6] By about 1614 it had weakened to anyone of solitary habits,^[4][14] and adjectival use, for reclusive, appears in 1639.^[4] Johnson (1755) defined it as a recluse who retires to the stricter duties of religion.^[15]

Timeline

• c. 1435 – a religious recluse, a hermit.^[4]
• 1570 – a hermit of the early Eastern Church.^[4][14]
• c. 1614 – a person of solitary or unsociable habits.^[4]
• 1639 – adjective, reclusive.^[4]
• 1645 – adjective, of or belonging to a hermit.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. A person who has withdrawn from the world, usually for religious reasons; a recluse or hermit.^[2][9][4]
2. (church history) A recluse or hermit of the early Eastern Church.^[4][14]
3. A person of solitary or secluded habits.^[4][14]

Adjective

1. Preferring solitude; reclusive.^[4]
2. Being a hermit, or belonging to one.^[4]

Word family

• anchoritic
• anchoritically

Related words

• anchor
• anchoress
• anchoret
• anachoret

Usage notes

Merriam-Webster Unabridged has a separate word anchorite for a rock, a variety of diorite with dark and light patches, named from the Anchor Inn at Caldecote near Nuneaton in England and dated 1898.^[2]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
3. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
6. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
9. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
10. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ a b c d Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
12. ^ a b c Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
13. ^ Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
14. ^ a b c d e Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
15. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.