Forms: 5 ancorite, 6–7 anachorete, 6–8 -it(e, 7–8 -et, 7 anch’rit(e, anchorete, (9 arch. ankret), 7– anchoret, -ite. [The forms anachoret(e, anachorit(e were a. Fr. anachorète and L. anachōrēta, med.L. anachōrīta, ad. Gr. ἀναχωρητ-ής, n. of agent f. ἀναχωρέ-ειν to retire, retreat, f. ἀνά back + χωρέ-ειν to give place, withdraw. Under infl. of the earlier Eng. ancre, anker (ANCHOR sb.2), this has been modified to anchrit, ancorite, anchoret, anchorite, of which the two last are now equally common. Appeared c. 1450, and superseded ANCHOR c. 1600.]
1. A person who has withdrawn or secluded himself from the world; usually one who has done so for religious reasons, a recluse, a hermit. (Appl. to both sexes, though the special fem. is ANCHORESS.)
1460. Capgrave, Chron., 65. Thelophorus [was] mad Pope, whech was first a ancorite.
1538. Leland, Itin., V. 116. A Chapel of a woman Anachorete.
1608. Bp. Hall, Epistles, I. v. He had wilfully mur’d up himselfe as an Anachoret.
1634. Habington, Castara (1870), 18. The Vowes of recluse Nuns, and th’ An’chrits prayer.
a. 1680. Butler, Rem. (1759), I. 47. A solitary Anchorite that dwells, Retir’d from all the World in obscure Cells.
1741. Johnson, L. P., Morin, Wks. 1787, IV. 473. The ostentation of a philosopher, or the severity of an anchoret.
1816. Scott, Antiq., xxxv. (1829), 239. No anchoret could have made a more simple and scanty meal.
1852. Rock, Ch. of Fathers, III. 115. Not always did the ankret live beneath the church’s roof.
1869. Goulburn, Purs. Holiness, i. 1. Elijah was a sort of anchorite or hermit.
b. attrib.
1847. Longf., Evan., II. iv. 25. The grim, taciturn bear, the anchorite monk of the desert.
2. Ch. Hist. The recluses of the East in the early Christian centuries. (In this application the Gr. form anachoret is often retained.)
1553–87. Foxe, A. & M. (1596), 138/1. Moonks … were divided into heremits or anachorits, and into Cœnobits.
1650. W. Charleton, Paradoxes, Prol. 29. The Faune … desired the mediatory Prayers of Anthony, the Anachoret.
1781. Gibbon, Decl. & F., II. xxxvii. 354. The holy man was followed by a train of two or three thousand anachorets.
1844. Lingard, Anglo-Sax. Ch. (1858), I. v. 204. The same contempt for riches which distinguished the anachorets of Egypt.
1867. Lady Herbert, Cradle L., v. 154. Endless caverns … where the Anchorites, in the early days of the Church, lived.
3. fig. Any one of solitary secluded habits.
1616. Drumm. of Hawth., Sonnet, xxi. Wks. 1711, 4/2. Framed for mishap, th’ anachorit of love.
1848. Dickens, Dombey (C. D. ed.), 117. Even amongst those absorbed young anchorites Paul was an object of interest.
1864. I. Taylor, in Good Wds., 787/1. The individual reader—the fireside anchoret, is a being with whose tastes and practices I have no concernment just now.
4. Comb., as anchoret-like, -window.
1657. Trapp, Comm. Nehem. vi. 10. He was thus (Anchoret-like) pent up.
1865. Athenæum, No. 1960. 849/2. Canon Rock … considered the opening to be an anchorite window.
