anchoress vs religious

anchoress

noun
  • A female anchorite. A woman who chooses to withdraw from the world to live a solitary life of prayer and contemplation. 

  • An anchorwoman. 

religious

noun
  • A member of a religious order, i.e. a monk or nun. 

adj
  • Concerning religion. 

  • Committed to the practice or adherence of religion. 

  • Highly dedicated, as one would be to a religion. 

How often have the words anchoress and religious occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )