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An affable person is pleasant, friendly, and easy to talk to.
To cloister someone is to remove and isolate them from the rest of the world.
A conclave is a meeting between a group of people who discuss something secretly.
A congenial person, place, or environment is pleasant, friendly, and enjoyable.
A convivial atmosphere or occasion is friendly, pleasant, cheerful, and relaxed.
A desolate area is unused, empty of life, deserted, and lonely.
A dour place is plain and dull—people don’t have much fun there.
If someone is eccentric, they behave in a strange and unusual way that is different from most people.
Someone who is effusive expresses happiness, pleasure, admiration, praise, etc., in an extremely enthusiastic way.
An enclave is a small area within a larger area of a city or country in which people of a different nationality or culture live.
If you ensconce yourself somewhere, you put yourself into a comfortable place or safe position and have no intention of moving or leaving for quite some time.
If you exude a quality or feeling, people easily notice that you have a large quantity of it because it flows from you; if a smell or liquid exudes from something, it flows steadily and slowly from it.
A forlorn person is lonely because they have been abandoned; a forlorn home has been deserted.
A garrulous person talks a lot, especially about unimportant things.
A gregarious person is friendly, highly social, and prefers being with people rather than being alone.
The adjective hermetic describes something that is set apart, isolated, or separate from the influence or interference of society at large.
If someone is impassive, they are not showing any emotion.
If you incarcerate someone, you put them in prison or jail.
If you are incommunicado, you are out of touch, unable to be communicated with, or in an isolated situation.
An introvert is someone who primarily prefers being by themself instead of hanging out with others socially; nevertheless, they still enjoy spending time with friends.
When someone is described as itinerant, they are characterized by traveling or moving about from place to place.
Someone who is loquacious talks too much.
A misanthrope is someone who hates and mistrusts people.
If someone is ostracized from a group, its members deliberately refuse to talk or listen to them and do not allow them to take part in any of their social activities.
A pariah is a social outcast.
If someone leads a peripatetic life, they travel from place to place, living and working only for a short time in each place before moving on.
When people or animals are quarantined, they are put in isolation so that they will not spread disease.
Seclusion is the condition of being closed off or isolated from society.
If you sequester someone, you keep them separate from other people.
A taciturn person is quiet or silent by nature.
A troglodyte is reclusive, severely lacking in social skills, and is out of step with current times.
A voluble person can speak easily with speech that naturally flows; voluble people also tend to be quite chatty.
Noun
recluse
REK-loos
Context
Living the life of a solitary, lonely recluse suited Charles. He built his cabin with his own hands, placed it far away from any neighbors, and enjoyed the silence of being a recluse. As he withdrew from the society of local people, Charles became known as the recluse who chose to live alone, rarely coming to town and never talking with others.
Quiz:Try again!
Where might a recluse choose to live?
In a compound with other people who share their beliefs.
In a small cabin in the middle of the forest.
In a high-security apartment building that has many residents.
Rees Closed the DoorRees the recluseclosed his door and we have never seen him again.
Examples
They say that God is everywhere, and yet we always think of Him as somewhat of a recluse.
— Emily Dickinson
As the media and fans searched eagerly for confirmation of his return, [Michael] Jordan did his best Howard Hughes imitation, becoming a recluse and refusing to utter a public word.
—
Sports Illustrated
The feature, written, produced and directed by Jim Wolpaw, will attempt to piece together the life of 19th century poet and recluse Emily Dickinson.
—
USA Today
“He loved books with the same passion with which he detested his fellow man,” says the narrator (an uncredited Julie Christie) of the town’s most famous recluse, who stays holed up in his rather forbidding home, devoting himself to reading.
—
Wall Street Journal
A recluse is “shut back” from the rest of the world.
Word Theater
YouTube: The Lip TV A description of Bill Watterson—author of the comic Calvin and Hobbes—as a recluse.
The panel shows a small video clip of either the word in actual use or a scene that represents the meaning of a word. This not only breaks up the monotony of studying words but also provides another avenue to strengthen word meaning. Enjoy!
Word Constellation
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Related Words
cloister ·
conclave ·
desolate+ ·
dour ·
eccentric ·
enclave ·
ensconce ·
forlorn ·
hermetic ·
impassive ·
incarcerate ·
incommunicado+ ·
introvert+ ·
misanthrope ·
ostracize ·
pariah ·
quarantine ·
seclusion+ ·
sequester ·
taciturn ·
troglodyte ·
affable ·
congenial ·
convivial ·
effusive ·
exude ·
garrulous ·
gregarious ·
itinerant ·
loquacious ·
peripatetic ·
voluble ·
Similar sense
Opposite sense
Word Variants
reclusive
adj
→
reserved; withdrawn
The section lists important variants and alternate definitions of the headword. Knowing variants will often help you both remember and understand the word. Not all variants are listed - only the ones we think that are important for you to know.
