NUN • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Nun

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

/nən/ Listen

noun

nun n.

A woman devoted to a religious life, who lives in a convent, under the three vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. "They holy time is quiet as a nun Breathless with adoration."

(Zool.)

(a)

A white variety of domestic pigeons having a veil of feathers covering the head.

(b)

The smew.

(c)

The European blue titmouse.

Gray nuns (R. C. Ch.), the members of a religious order established in Montreal in 1745, whence branches were introduced into the United States in 1853; so called from the color or their robe, and known in religion as Sisters of Charity of Montreal.

Nun buoy. See under Buoy.

nun n. The 14th letter of the Hebrew alphabet, corresponding in pronunciation to n.

nun n. The 25th letter of the Arabic alphabet, corresponding in pronunciation to n.

See images of 'Nun'

Etymology of 'Nun'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Share |

"Nun" Quotes from Famous Books

... of the rustling skirt, which turned out to be a pretty French print, had appeared at the doorway. She was a tall, slim blonde, with a shy, startled manner, as of a penitent nun who was suffering for some conventual transgression—a resemblance that was heightened by her short-cut hair, that might have been cropped as if for punishment. A certain likeness to her mother suggested ...

— The Heritage of Dedlow Marsh and Other Tales • Bret Harte

... fury thereby, visited her repeatedly with punishments. No sooner had I learned this than I sent her to a convent of nuns at Argenteuil, not far from Paris, where she herself had been brought up and educated as a young girl. I had them make ready for her all the garments of a nun, suitable for the life of a convent, excepting only the veil, and these I bade ...

— Historia Calamitatum • Peter Abelard

... After an illness which lasted for ten weeks, he died on Christmas Day, 1635, at the age of sixty-eight. His beautiful young wife, who had shared his exile for four years, returned to France where she became an Ursuline nun, and founded a convent at Meaux, in which she immured herself until her ...

— Canadian Notabilities, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent

... me made a nun—but first I will bring nunneries back from across the seas to this ...

— Privy Seal - His Last Venture • Ford Madox Ford

... A nun,[114] walking in the convent garden, took a fancy to eat a leaf of lettuce, and she ate, without first making the sign of the cross over it. Presently she was found to be possessed. At the approach of the abbot, the fiend protested it was not his fault; that he had been innocently sitting ...

— Anglo-Saxon Literature • John Earle

More quotes...