The act of confining someone or oneself to a cloister or isolated place, or separating from the rest of society.
Present participle of 'cloister,' which functions as both noun and verb. The verb form emerged in Middle English when the noun (a physical place) became used figuratively to mean 'to confine' or 'to isolate,' similar to how 'prison' can mean 'to imprison.'
During the COVID-19 pandemic, people rediscovered what cloistering meant—but now we call it 'sheltering in place.' The word reminds us that humans have been deliberately isolating themselves for spiritual or protective reasons for over a thousand years.
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