Other forms: recluses
A recluse is somebody who lives shut away from other people. Live as a recluse, a famous recluse, became a recluse.
It is a choice rather than a condition, which is what separates it from loneliness — a recluse has withdrawn. The word came from religious life, where a recluse was somebody enclosed in a cell for prayer, sometimes walled in permanently.
1nounrecluseSomebody who lives shut away from other people.
“After his wife died, the old writer became a recluse and rarely left his house.”
recluse is a person.
The Latin behind it means to close. A recluse has closed the door and stays on the other side of it.
hooks ontoclose
Latin recludere means to shut away — re plus claudere, to close.
Latin
reclūdō — to disclose, to open
Old French
reclus
English, today
recluse
Built from
From Old French reclus, past participle of reclure, from Latin reclūdō (“to disclose, to open”), from re- + claudō (“close”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA