The etymology of solitude indicates that the Romans understood that to be alone, living away from the turbulent world outside, leads to security and Wholeness (in union with the Divine).
Solitude is even more important today, with society degenerating into more and more chaos. For J. Krishnamurti wisely said, “It is no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”
Similarly, Anthony Storr wrote in Solitude, “The majority of poets, novelists, composers, and, to a lesser extent, of painters and sculptors, are bound to spend a great deal of time alone,” quoting Edward Gibbon as saying, “Conversation enriches the understanding, but solitude is the school of genius; and the uniformity of a work denotes the hand of a single artist.”
Solitude has been absolutely essential to develop this Glossary, illustrating the hidden conceptual structures that we all share in common, beneath our apparent differences.
Probably 1348, ‘state of being alone’, from Old French solitude ‘loneliness’, from Latin sōlitūdō ‘solitude, loneliness’, from sōlus ‘alone’. Regarding the PIE root, De Vaan says that the etymological connection with *se and *s(w)e ‘self’ and *sed ‘away, apart’, which is conventionally supposed, is hardly possible. Rather, he suggests that sōlus could be semantically connected with the PIE roots for Latin salvus ‘safe, secure’, solidus ‘solid, thorough’ and sollus ‘whole, unbroken, complete’, that is *sol- ‘whole’, also root of Greek olos ‘all, whole, entire’.