Etymology Dictionary

ANCHORET, ANCHORITE,  a recluse, hermit.  (F.,—Gk.)   The former is the better spelling.   1. The M.E. has the form ancre, which is rather common, and used by Wyclif, Langland, and others; esp. in the phrase Ancren Riwle, i.e. the rule of (female) anchorets, the title of a work written early in the 13th century.   Shak. has anchor, Hamlet, iii. 2. 229.   This M.E. word is modified from the A.S. ancra, or ancer, a hermit.   2. The A.S. ancer-lif, i.e. 'hermit-life' is used to translate the Lat. uita anachoretica in Beda's Eccl. Hist. iv. 28; and the word ancer is no native word, but a mere corruption of the Low Lat. anachoreta, a hermit, recluse.   3. The more modern form anchoret, which occurs in Burton's Anat. of Melan. p. 125 (ed. 1827), is from the French.—F. anachorete, 'the hermit called an ankrosse [corruption of ankress, a female anker or anchoret] or anchorite;' Cot.—Low Lat. anachoreta, a recluse.—Gk. ἀναχωρητής, a recluse, lit. one who has retired from the world.—Gk. ἀναχωρεῖν, to retire.—Gk. ἀνά, back; and χωρέειν, χωρεῖν, to withdraw, make room.—Gk. χῶρος, space, room; related to χωρίς, asunder, apart; also to Skt. há, to abandon, leave, forsake; Curtius, i. 247.—✔GHA, to abandon, leave; Fick, i. 78. [†]

ADDENDA

Not (F.,—Gk.), but F.,—Low Lat.,—Gk.).   See the context.