sister

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a female person who is a fellow member of a sorority or labor union or other group

   None of my sisters would betray me.

2. 2
   noun

   a female person who has the same parents as another person

   my sister married a musician

3. 3
   noun

   A daughter of the same parents as another person; a female sibling.

   My sister is always driving me crazy.

4. 4
   noun

   A female member of a religious order; especially one devoted to more active service; (informal) a nun.

   Michelle left behind her bank job and became a sister at the local convent.

5. 5
   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.

   Connie was very close to her friend Judy and considered her to be her sister.

6. 6
   noun

   A black woman.

   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.

7. 7
   noun

   A form of address to a woman.

   What’s up, sister?

8. 8
   noun

   A female fellow member of a religious community, church, trades union etc.

   Thank you, sister. I would like to thank the sister who just spoke.

Etymology

PIE word *swésōr From Middle English sister, suster, from Old English swustor, sweoster, sweostor (“sister, nun”); from Proto-Germanic *swestēr (“sister”), from Proto-Indo-European *swésōr (“sister”). 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”), Alba…