solitude

From Middle English solitude, from Old French solitude. By surface analysis, sole +‎ -itude.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈsɒlɪˌtjuːd/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈsɑlɪˌtud/
• Hyphenation: sol‧i‧tude

• Audio (US)

  (file)

solitude (countable and uncountable, plural solitudes)

1. Aloneness; the state of being alone, solitary, or by oneself.

   Synonym: aloneness

   Antonym: intimacy

   • 1859, Edward Fitzgerald, The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám: The Astronomer-Poet of Persia, page 2:

     Now the New Year reviving old Desires,
     The thoughtful Soul to Solitude retires,
     Where the White Hand of Moses on the Bough
     Puts out, and Jesus from the Ground suspires.

   • 1975, Saul Bellow, Humboldt’s Gift, New York, N.Y.: Viking Press, →ISBN, page 193:

     Cranks like Rousseau made solitude glamorous, but sensible people agreed that it was really terrible.

2. A lonely or deserted place.
   • 1813, Lord Byron, Bride of Abydos, Canto 2, stanza 20:

     Mark where his carnage and his conquests cease!
     He makes a solitude, and calls it — peace.

   • 1874, Georg August Schweinfurth, chapter I, in Ellen E. Frewer, transl., The Heart of Africa: Three Years' Travels and Adventures in the Unexplored Regions of Central Africa, from 1868 to 1871‎, second edition, volume I, London: Sampson Low, Marston, Low, And Searle, translation of Im Herzen von Afrika, Botanical Ardour:

     [S]uch an one […] recalls as a vision of Paradise the land he has learnt to love; he exaggerates the insalubrity of a northern climate; he bewails the wretched formality of our civilised life, and so, back to the distant solitudes flies his recollection like a dove to the wilderness.

• two solitudes

• sole
• solo
• soliloquy
• solitary
• solitudinous
• solitudinously

• loneliness

• solitude on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

• outslide, slideout, toluides

Learned borrowing from Latin sōlitūdō.

• IPA^(key): /sɔ.li.tyd/

• audio

  (file)

solitude f (plural solitudes)

1. solitude
   • 1969, “Ma solitude”, in Georges Moustaki (lyrics), Le Métèque, performed by Georges Moustaki:

     Elle m’a suivi çà et là / Aux quatre coins du monde / Non, je ne suis jamais seul / Avec ma solitude

     She followed me hither and yon / To the four corners of the world / No, I am never alone / With my solitude

• solitaire
• seul

• “solitude”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

solitude oblique singular, f (nominative singular solitude)

1. solitude

• → English: solitude
• French: solitude

Learned borrowing from Latin sōlitūdō, corresponding to sōlus (“alone”) + -tūdō.

• Hyphenation: so‧li‧tu‧de

solitude f (plural solitudes)

1. solitude

   Synonym: solidão

• só
• solidão
• solitário