Hello, you have come here looking for the meaning of the word nun. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word nun, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say nun in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word nun you have here. The definition of the word nun will help you to be more precise and correct when speaking or writing your texts. Knowing the definition ofnun, as well as those of other words, enriches your vocabulary and provides you with more and better linguistic resources.
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.
Thus, when the nuns came to the mission and we saw that instead of murmuring soft blessings and gliding seraphically over the grass in diaphanous habits, they wore smart blouses and skirts and walked, laughed and talked in low twanging tones very much like our own American missionaries did, we were very disappointed.
(by extension) A member of a similar female community in other confessions.
Why laſt night, as Colonel Kill'em, Sir William Weezy, Lord Frederick Foretop, and I were careleſsly ſliding the Ranelagh round, picking our teeth, after a damn'd muzzy dinner at Boodle's, who ſhould trip by but an abbeſs, well known about town, with a ſmart little nun in her ſuite.
1881, Pierce Egan, chapter 8, in Life in London, page 205:
"I mean to inform you," answered the Oxonian, with a grin on his face, "that those three nymphs, who have so much dazzled your optics, are three nuns, and the plump female is Mother .... of great notoriety [...]"
A kind of pigeon with the feathers on its head like the hood of a nun.
Usage notes
In Roman Catholicism, a distinction is often drawn (especially by members of female religious orders) between nuns and sisters, the former being cloistered and devoted primarily to prayer, the latter being more active, doing work such as operating hospitals, caring for the poor, or teaching.
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
now, then; expressing a logical or temporal consequence
Wir haben abgewaschen, nun müssen wir noch abtrocknen.
We've washed up, now we must dry .
Was bedeuten nun die geschilderten Entwicklungen für unser Land?
Now what do the aforementioned developments mean for our country?
unstressed and expletive, used for minor emphasis
Was soll das nun heißen?
What's that supposed to mean now?
Usage notes
Although the adverb is similar and akin to English “now”, German nun is not commonly used in a strictly temporal sense, meaning “at this moment”. For that, see jetzt.
Transcriptions of Mandarin into the Latin script often do not distinguish between the critical tonal differences employed in the Mandarin language, using words such as this one without indication of tone.