sister
/ˈsɪs.tɚ/
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: Zipf frequency 4.95 in modern English
6
Scrabble Score
6
Letters
2
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A daughter of the same parents as another person; a female sibling.
noun
A female member of a religious order; especially one devoted to more active service; (informal) a nun.
noun
Any butterfly in the genus Adelpha, so named for the resemblance of the dark-colored wings to the black habit traditionally worn by nuns.
noun
Any woman or girl with whom a bond is felt through the same biological sex, gender or common membership in a community, race, profession, religion, organization, or ism.
noun
A female fellow member of a religious community, church, trades union etc.
Example Sentences
- "My sister is always driving me crazy."
- "Michelle left behind her bank job and became a sister at the local convent."
- "Connie was very close to her friend Judy and considered her to be her sister."
- "Sisters are doing it for themselves / Standing on their own two feet"
- "A fly sister rolled in with a suitcase full of hip-hop novels called The Glamorous Life, and an African brother with long dreads wanted to sell them some incense and some fake Jacob watches."
- "The short “naps” of the average Sister do not sway in the wind as that of a blonde."
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *swé Proto-Indo-European *h₁ésh₂r̥ Proto-Indo-European *su-h₁ésh₂-ōr? Proto-Indo-European *swé Proto-Indo-European *-sōr ? Proto-Indo-European *swésōrder. Proto-Germanic *swestēr Proto-West Germanic *swester Old English sweostor Middle English suster English sister Inherited from Middle English suster, from Old English sweostor, from Proto-West Germanic *swester, from Proto-Germanic *swestēr, from Proto-Indo-European *swésōr. Doublet of soror. Cognate with Scots sister, syster (“sister”), West Frisian sus, suster (“sister”), Dutch zuster (“sister”), German Schwester (“sister”), Norwegian Bokmål søster (“sister”), Norwegian Nynorsk and Swedish syster (“sister”), Icelandic systir (“sister”), Gothic 𐍃𐍅𐌹𐍃𐍄𐌰𐍂 (swistar, “sister”), Latin soror (“sister”), Russian сестра́ (sestrá, “sister”), Lithuanian sesuo (“sister”), Albanian vajzë (“girl, maiden”), Sanskrit स्वसृ (svásṛ, “sister”), Persian خواهر (xâhar, “sister”). In standard English, the form with i is due to contamination with Old Norse systir (“sister”). The plural sistren is from Middle English sistren, a variant plural of sister, suster (“sister”); compare brethren. The sense for "Adelpha-genus butterfly" is a semantic loan from translingual Adelpha, itself from Ancient Greek ἀδελφή (adelphḗ, “sister”).
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈsɪs.tɚ/
- British English: /ˈsɪs.tə(ɹ)/
Usage
- British usage
- Slang
- Informal
- Transitive verb
- Obsolete