ENGLISH DICTIONARY

Monk

Definition, Meaning & Examples

Pronunciation /mʌŋk/ · Part of speech noun

Quick meaning: Monk is a noun meaning A male member of a monastic order who has devoted his life for religious service.

Meaning

A male member of a monastic order who has devoted his life for religious service.

More Meanings

  1. In earlier usage, an eremite or hermit devoted to solitude, as opposed to a cenobite, who lived communally.
  2. (printing, archaic) An inkblot.
  3. A South American monkey (Pithecia monachus); also applied to other species, as Cebus xanthosternos.
  4. The bullfinch, common bullfinch, European bullfinch, or Eurasian bullfinch (Pyrrhula pyrrhula).
  5. (slang) Someone who leads an isolated life; a loner, a hermit.
  6. (slang) An unmarried man who does not have sexual relationships.
  7. (slang) A judge.

Example Sentences

Good people, if you're ever short of a job, don't take up monking for a living.
"Ah!" she cried, "thou art the prettiest little monk that ever monked it in this blessed, amorous town of Constance!"
Many a scholar, making wings of candlewicks to flap away old darkness, monked his life to fasting long while feasting upon new light.
In clusters on the plain, like cowlless monks at matins, sat the vultures that had settled on the corpse of the hyena impaled by the female rhino […]

Word Forms

Synonyms for monk

Depending on context, synonyms include monastic.

Related Words

Related dictionary entries include monastic, fra, friar, priest, guru, man.

Related Dictionary Tools

Sources & Attribution

FreeDictionaryAPI.com / Wiktionary · Original source · CC BY-SA 4.0

Dictionary data is provided by FreeDictionaryAPI.com and sourced from Wiktionary under its stated license.