SOLITUDE • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Solitude

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/sˈɑlətˌud/ Listen

noun

Solitude n.

1.

State of being alone, or withdrawn from society; a lonely life; loneliness. "Whosoever is delighted with solitude is either a wild beast or a god." "O Solitude! where are the charms That sages have seen in thy face?"

2.

Remoteness from society; destitution of company; seclusion; said of places; as, the solitude of a wood. "The solitude of his little parish is become matter of great comfort to him."

3.

Solitary or lonely place; a desert or wilderness. "In these deep solitudes and awful cells Where heavenly pensive contemplation dwells."

Synonyms: Syn. Loneliness; soitariness; loneness; retiredness; recluseness. Solitude, Retirement, Seclusion, Loneliness. Retirement is a withdrawal from general society, implying that a person has been engaged in its scenes. Solitude describes the fact that a person is alone; seclusion, that he is shut out from others, usually by his own choice; loneliness, that he feels the pain and oppression of being alone. Hence, retirement is opposed to a gay, active, or public life; solitude, to society; seclusion, to freedom of access on the part of others; and loneliness, enjoyment of that society which the heart demands. "O blest retirement, friend to life's decline." "Such only can enjoy the country who are capable of thinking when they are there; then they are prepared for solitude; and in that (the country) solitude is prepared for them." "It is a place of seclusion from the external world." "These evils... seem likely to reduce it (a city) ere long to the loneliness and the insignificance of a village."

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Etymology of 'Solitude'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Solitude" Quotes from Famous Books

... miserable in Rome at the time of the Pope's Jubilee. Fortunately for us, this terrible old man had fastened himself upon a party of American school-teachers travelling en Cook, and for the time we were safe; but our vision of two hours of dreamy solitude faded lamentably away. ...

— Black Spirits and White - A Book of Ghost Stories • Ralph Adams Cram

... pious does he appear in these moments of solitude, and how spirited are his resolutions for the improvement of his mind, even in elegant literature, at a very advanced period of life, and when afflicted ...

— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell

... clean, inconceivably tidy, shimmering with brilliant light under its lofty and beautiful ceiling, shaking and roaring with the terrific thunder of its own vitality, this hall in which no common voice could make itself heard produced nevertheless an effect of magical stillness, silence, and solitude. We were alone in it, save that now and then in the far-distant spaces a figure might flit and disappear between the huge glinting columns of metal. It was a hall enchanted and inexplicable. I understood nothing of it. But I understood that half the electricity of New York was being ...

— Your United States - Impressions of a first visit • Arnold Bennett

... the pulpit, became Uria. He rode through the desert with the letter of his king. He was alone. The solitude terrified him. His thoughts were gloomy. But he smiled when he thought of his wife. The desert became a flowering meadow when he remembered his wife. Springs gushed up from the ground at ...

— Invisible Links • Selma Lagerlof

... there was a sentiment of solitude in his life, but it was scarcely more, so affectionate and devoted were his relations to his kindred and his friends. His elder sister, Mrs. Samuel B. Ripley, was one of the most admirably accomplished women in New England, living for some years in the Old Manse ...

— Early Letters of George Wm. Curtis • G. W. Curtis, ed. George Willis Cooke

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