solitude

noun

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

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

   “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.”

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

2. A lonely or deserted place.

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

   “[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.”