Recluse

//ɹɪˈkluːs// adj, noun, verb

adj, noun, verb ·Moderate ·High school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A person who lives in self-imposed isolation or seclusion from the world, especially for religious purposes; a hermit. archaic

    "The recluse in the fable kept a cat to keep off the rats, and then a cow to feed the cat with milk, and a man to keep the cow and so on. My ambitions also grew like the family of the recluse."

  2. 2
    one who lives in solitude wordnet
  3. 3
    The place where a recluse dwells; a place of isolation or seclusion. archaic, obsolete

    "that day of appearance taken out of the recluse and committed to safe custody"

  4. 4
    Ellipsis of recluse spider. US, abbreviation, alt-of, archaic, ellipsis
  5. 5
    See also Thesaurus:recluse archaic
Verb
  1. 1
    To shut; to seclude. archaic, obsolete, transitive
Adjective
  1. 1
    Sequestered; secluded, isolated. archaic

    "a recluse monk or hermit"

  2. 2
    Hidden, secret. archaic
Adjective
  1. 1
    withdrawn from society; seeking solitude wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
hermithermitsolitaryanchoriteeremitereclusive

Example

More examples

"Johnson is a recluse; he prefers to isolate himself from the rest of the students in our class."

Etymology

From Old French reclus, past participle of reclure, from Latin reclūdere (“to disclose, to open”), from re- + claudō (“close”).

Related phrases

Texas reclusebrown recluserecluse spiderbrown recluse

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.