RECLUSE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does recluse mean? 

• RECLUSE (noun)
  The noun RECLUSE has 1 sense:

1. one who lives in solitude

  Familiarity information: RECLUSE used as a noun is very rare.

• RECLUSE (adjective)
  The adjective RECLUSE has 1 sense:

1. withdrawn from society; seeking solitude

  Familiarity information: RECLUSE used as an adjective is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• RECLUSE (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

One who lives in solitude

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

hermit; recluse; solitary; solitudinarian; troglodyte

Hypernyms ("recluse" is a kind of...):

lone hand; lone wolf; loner (a person who avoids the company or assistance of others)

Instance hyponyms:

John the Baptist; St. John the Baptist ((New Testament) a preacher and hermit and forerunner of Jesus (whom he baptized); was beheaded by Herod at the request of Salome)

Derivation:

recluse (withdrawn from society; seeking solitude)

• RECLUSE (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Withdrawn from society; seeking solitude

Synonyms:

recluse; reclusive; withdrawn

Context example:

lived an unsocial reclusive life

Similar:

unsocial (not seeking or given to association; being or living without companions)

Derivation:

recluse (one who lives in solitude)

 Context examples 

“And the French?” asked Alleyne, to whom the archer's light gossip had all the relish that the words of the man of action have for the recluse.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Except at such times as he saw Ruth, or dropped in to see his sister Gertude, he lived a recluse, in each day accomplishing at least three days' labor of ordinary men.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

I had lived a placid, uneventful, sedentary existence all my days—the life of a scholar and a recluse on an assured and comfortable income.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

He said, “it was altogether impossible to find such a solitary island as I desired to live in; but I might command in my own house, and pass my time in a manner as recluse as I pleased.”

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

He went to call indeed; but he was perhaps relieved to be denied admittance; perhaps, in his heart, he preferred to speak with Poole upon the doorstep and surrounded by the air and sounds of the open city, rather than to be admitted into that house of voluntary bondage, and to sit and speak with its inscrutable recluse.

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

That sagacious Miss Mills, too; that amiable, though quite used up, recluse; that little patriarch of something less than twenty, who had done with the world, and mustn't on any account have the slumbering echoes in the caverns of Memory awakened; what a kind thing she did!

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)