nuns
noun
Form of nun , plural of nun.
Simple meaning
A member of a Christian religious community of women who live by certain vows and usually wear a habit, those living together in a cloister.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
nuhnzIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈnʌnz
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
plural of nun
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.
plural of nun
A member of a similar female community in other confessions.
plural of nun
A woman religious
plural of nun
The fourteenth letter of many Semitic alphabets or abjads (Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew, Syriac, Arabic and others).
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: 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.
Used this way, nuns is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This is a religious use: it carries the weight of tradition and ceremony.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Where it naturally appears
- Religion/spirituality
- Historical writing
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.