Also 6 soll-. [a. OF. solitude (also mod.F., = Sp. solitud, Pg. solitude, It. solitudine) or ad. L. sōlitūdo, f. sōlus alone. Not in common use in English until the 17th cent.]
In poetry, esp. of the 18th century, freq. more or less personified in senses 1 and 2, or in a blending of these.
1. The state of being or living alone; loneliness, seclusion, solitariness (of persons).
c. 1374. Chaucer, Compl. Mars, 65. She hath so grete compassion on her knyght, That dwelleth in solitude til she come.
1592. Kyd, Sp. Trag., I. iv. For sollitude best fits my cheereles mood.
1625. Bacon, Ess., Friendship (Arb.), 165. But little doe Men perceiue, what Solitude is, and how farre it extendeth.
1663. S. Patrick, Parab. Pilgr., xxix. (1687), 345. As the wise employ their Solitude in pious counsels.
1709. Lady M. W. Montagu, Lett. to Miss A. Wortley, 8 Aug. Your letters … are the only pleasures of my solitude.
1764. R. Burn, Poor Laws, 199. There can be no more effectual means … than those of solitude and fasting.
1818. Byron, Ch. Harold, IV. xxxiii. If from society we learn to live, ’Tis solitude should teach us how to die.
1856. R. A. Vaughan, Mystics (ed. 4), I. 66. Solitude brings no escape from spiritual danger.
1887. Ruskin, Præterita, II. 237. I was not, as I used to suppose, born for solitude.
† b. The fact of being sole or unique. Obs. rare.
1642. H. More, Song of Soul, IV. 20. All the arguments that I have brought For to disprove the souls strange solitude.
1646. Sir T. Browne, Pseud. Ep., III. xii. 132. Nor will the solitude of the Phænix allow this denomination, for many there are of that species.
2. Loneliness (of places); remoteness from habitations; absence of life or stir.
1585. T. Washington, trans. Nicholay’s Voy., IV. x. 121 b. The desart is of greate compasse and Solitude.
1639. Massinger, Unnatural Combat, IV. ii. His doors are fast locked up, and solitude Dwells round about them.
1729. Law, Serious Call, xxi. 419. The solitude of his little Parish is become matter of great comfort to him.
1794. Mrs. Radcliffe, Myst. Udolpho, III. vi. 169–70. During several hours, they travelled through regions of profound solitude.
1825. Scott, Betrothed, x. A bustle, equally different from the solitude of the early morning, and from the roar and fury of the subsequent engagement.
1849. G. P. R. James, Woodman, i. Then all was stillness and solitude once more.
1873. Hamerton, Intell. Life, IX. vi. 325. The solitude of the infinite sea.
3. A lonely, unfrequented or uninhabited place.
1570–6. Lambarde, Peramb. Kent (1826), 192. Being then a meere solitude, and on no part inhabited.
1617. Moryson, Itin., III. 125. There be vast solitudes and untilled Desarts on all sides.
1660. F. Brooke, trans. Le Blanc’s Trav., 173. Vast solitudes, and sandy deserts, which you must travell for many dayes.
1712. Steele, in Pope’s Wks. (1757), VII. 180. I am at a solitude, an house between Hampstead and London.
1788. Gibbon, Decl. & F., xliii. IV. 277. That busy scene was converted into a silent solitude.
1816. Byron, Ch. Har., III. cii. A populous solitude of bees and birds.
1854. Milman, Lat. Chr., III. vi. II. 77. Their Solitudes ceased to be solitary.
1873. Symonds, Grk. Poets, x. 319. An Italian of the present day avoids ruinous places and solitudes however splendid.
fig. 1843. Carlyle, Past & Pres., III. xii. Peopling … the unmeasured solitudes of Time!
4. A complete absence or lack. rare.
1605. Bacon, Adv. Learn., II. To the King § 8. Hence it proceedeth that Princes find a solitude, in regard of able men to serve them.
1821. Lamb, Elia, I. Old Benchers Inner Temple. Thomas Coventry…, who made a solitude of children wherever he came.
