Nun

Quick meaning: Nun is a noun meaning (by extension) A member of a similar female community in other confessions.

Meaning

(by extension) A member of a similar female community in other confessions.

More Meanings

1. A kind of pigeon with the feathers on its head like the hood of a nun.
2. The fourteenth letter of many Semitic alphabets or abjads (Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew, Syriac, Arabic and others).
3. Pronunciation spelling of nothing.
4. A member of a Christian religious community of women who live by certain vows and usually wear a habit, (Roman Catholicism, specifically) those living together in a cloister.
5. (archaic, British, slang) A prostitute.

Example Sentences

a Buddhist nun

"I mean to inform you," answered the Oxonian, with a grin on his face, "that those three nymphs, who have so much dazzled your optics, are three nuns, and the plump female is Mother .... of great notoriety [...]"

Why laſt night, as Colonel Kill'em, Sir William Weezy, Lord Frederick Foretop, and I were careleſsly ſliding the Ranelagh round, picking our teeth, after a damn'd muzzy dinner at Boodle's, who ſhould trip by but an abbeſs, well known about town, with a ſmart little nun in her ſuite.

Thus, when the nuns came to the mission and we saw that instead of murmuring soft blessings and gliding seraphically over the grass in diaphanous habits, they wore smart blouses and skirts and walked, laughed and talked in low twanging tones very much like our own American missionaries did, we were very disappointed.

Word Forms

• nuns

Synonyms for nun

Depending on context, synonyms include sister, sistren, cloistress, abandons, almah, bangtail.

Antonyms for nun

Common opposites include brother, friar, monk, frater.

Related Words

Related dictionary entries include convent, nunnery, abbey, religion, religious, sister.

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