Why this word is great
ANCHORESS — [Noun] A female anchorite; a woman who withdraws from secular life to live a solitary, religious life of prayer and contemplation, often in a cell attached to a church. From Middle English ankres, ankerisse, from anchor (hermit, anchorite) + -ess (feminine suffix). Unlike a nun, who seeks holiness in the communal rhythm of a convent, or a recluse, who may shun the world for any private reason, the anchoress was formally enclosed—her withdrawal a public, liturgical act, a living keystone in the spiritual architecture of her community. Hers was a solitude of stone and ritual: the small squint facing the altar, the sound of whispered confessions through a grate, the patient wear of a knee-groove into a wooden prie-dieu. She was not hiding; she was a fixed point, a stillness against which everything else could be seen to drift.