Nun - Definition, Meaning & Synonyms

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Other forms: nuns

A nun is a woman who's dedicated her life to religious observance. Most nuns spend their time praying or meditating and doing service work in their communities.

You may picture a Catholic nun when you hear the word nun, but there are nuns of other faiths as well, including Hindus, Lutherans, Jains, and Buddhists. Nuns serve the poor and hungry, sometimes running schools or orphanages, and they have in common a strict dedication to religion. Nun comes from the Old English nunne, and the Late Latin nonna, "nun," originally a generic word for addressing an older person.

Definitions of nun

noun a woman religious see moresee less examples: Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu Indian nun and missionary in the Roman Catholic Church (born of Albanian parents in what is now Macedonia); dedicated to helping the poor in India (1910-1997) types: Sister (Roman Catholic Church) a title given to a nun (and used as a form of address) type of: religious a member of a religious order who is bound by vows of poverty and chastity and obedience
noun a buoy resembling a cone synonyms: conical buoy, nun buoy see moresee less type of: buoy bright-colored; a float attached by rope to the seabed to mark channels in a harbor or underwater hazards

Definitions of nun

noun the 14th letter of the Hebrew alphabet see moresee less type of: alphabetic character, letter, letter of the alphabet the conventional characters of the alphabet used to represent speech

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