seclusion

From Medieval Latin, from Latin seclusio, from secludere.

• IPA^(key): /səˈkluːʒən/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -uːʒən

seclusion (countable and uncountable, plural seclusions)

1. The act of secluding, shutting out or keeping apart.
   • 1809, Laws of the State of Illinois Enacted by the ... General Assembly at the Extra Session .... (1992). United States: Illinois State Journal Company, State Printers.:

     Seclusion may be used only as a therapeutic measure to prevent a recipient from causing physical harm to himself or physical abuse to others.

2. The state of being secluded or shut out, as from company, society, the world, etc.; solitude.
   • 1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XVII, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume I, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 183:

     Madame de Mercœur was at first unwilling that Francesca should share her seclusion; but her young companion was too much in earnest to be refused. Francesca was still depressed by her recent parting with Guido, and clung to Henriette as her only friend,—she would have felt so utterly alone with Marie; besides, she too wished to pray for the absent and the dear.

3. A secluded, isolated or private place.
4. (meteorology) The mature phase of the extratropical cyclone life cycle.

   warm seclusion

• seclusion lodge

• seclude
• secluse
• secluseness
• seclusionist
• seclusive

• “seclusion”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.

• leucosins