Other forms: hermits
A hermit is somebody who lives entirely apart from other people. Live like a hermit, a hermit in the hills, the hermit's cell.
In Christian history hermits went into the desert on purpose and some became famous for it, which is a paradox nobody has resolved. A hermit crab borrows an empty shell and carries it. The Greek eremos means a desert or an empty place.
1nounhermitSomebody who lives entirely apart from other people.
“He became a hermit and lived alone in a hut in the mountains.”
hermit is a person.
Greek eremites means one of the desert, from eremos, deserted or solitary. Hermitage is the same root.
Ancient Greek
ἐρημίτης — person of the desert
Latin
eremita
Old French
eremite
Middle English
hermite
English, today
hermit
Built from
From Middle English hermite, heremite, eremite, from Old French eremite, from Ecclesiastical Latin -, Latin eremita, from Ancient Greek ἐρημίτης (“person of the desert”) from ἐρημία (“desert, solitude”), from ἔρημος or ἐρῆμος (“uninhabited”) plus -ίτης (“one connected to, a member of”). a doublet of eremite. Displaced native ānsetla.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA