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nun
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
nun
noun
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADJECTIVE
catholic
▪ Objections have arisen to Catholic nuns teaching in religious garb.
old
▪ The old nun gets out of the bath, leaving a trail of water on the floor as she unlocks the door.
▪ The old nun rose and scuttled across to him.
▪ Was the old nun referring to hands?
▪ But the old nun was sharp.
young
▪ I remember the excitement and relief I felt when I read it for the first time as a very young nun.
▪ She was a young nun with a deeply pocked face and bushy eyebrows that massed over the bridge of her large nose.
■ VERB
become
▪ She even considered becoming a nun.
▪ She had graduated from a Lutheran Bible college back home, and at one time she had seriously considered becoming a nun.
▪ I decide to become a nun.
▪ She and her five sisters became Carmelite nuns.
▪ Only a person of non-servile status might be ordained a clerk or become a monk or nun.
▪ Withburga resolved to become a nun after her father died in battle about the year 650.
▪ She'd been thinking about becoming a nun but she couldn't be with a baby.
▪ Georgiana later marries, and Eliza becomes a nun.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ A single nun, working in an unorthodox manner in the slums, made some of the local clergy distinctly uncomfortable.
▪ According to more than one witness, one of the nuns had her shoulder broken.
▪ Georgiana later marries, and Eliza becomes a nun.
▪ On the day of the crowning, the nuns gave all of us girls crowns of flowers to wear in our hair.
▪ The sun was beating down on our backs and our throats were becoming as dry as a proverbial nuns.
▪ These monks and nuns do not do this for their own good.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
nun

nun \nun\ (n[oo^]n or n[=oo]n), n. The 14th letter of the Hebrew alphabet, corresponding in pronunciation to n.

nun

nun \nun\ (n[oo^]n), n. The 25th letter of the Arabic alphabet, corresponding in pronunciation to n.

nun

nun \nun\ (n[u^]n), n. [OE. nunne, AS. nunne, fr. L. nonna nun, nonnus monk; cf. Gr. ?, ?; of unknown origin. Cf. Nunnery.]

  1. 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.
    --Wordsworth.

  2. (Zo["o]l.)

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

    2. The smew.

    3. 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.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
nun

Old English nunne "nun, vestal, pagan priestess, woman devoted to religious life under vows," from Late Latin nonna "nun, tutor," originally (along with masc. nonnus) a term of address to elderly persons, perhaps from children's speech, reminiscent of nana (compare Sanskrit nona, Persian nana "mother," Greek nanna "aunt," Serbo-Croatian nena "mother," Italian nonna, Welsh nain "grandmother;" see nanny).

Wiktionary
nun

Etymology 1 n. 1 A member of a Christian religious community of women who live by certain vows and usually wear a habit, in some cases living together in a cloister. 2 By extension, member of a similar female community in other confessions. Etymology 2

alt. The fourteenth letter of many Semitic alphabets/abjads (Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew, Syriac, Arabic and others). n. The fourteenth letter of many Semitic alphabets/abjads (Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew, Syriac, Arabic and others).

WordNet
nun
  1. n. a woman religious

  2. a buoy resembling a cone [syn: conical buoy, nun buoy]

  3. the 14th letter of the Hebrew alphabet

Wikipedia
NUN

NUN could refer to:

  • Saufley Field, airport, Pensacola, Florida, United States; IATA airport code NUN
  • Nuneaton railway station, England; National Rail station code NUN
Nun (letter)

Nun is the fourteenth letter of the Semitic abjads, including Phoenician Nūn , Hebrew Nun , Aramaic Nun , Syriac Nūn ܢܢ, and Arabic Nūn (in abjadi order). It is the third letter in Thaana , pronounced as "noonu".
Its sound value is .

The Phoenician letter gave rise to the Greek nu (Ν), Etruscan , Latin N, and Cyrillic Н.

Nun (disambiguation)

Nun may refer to:

Persons

  • Nun, a female ascetic who chooses to voluntarily leave the world and live her life in prayer and contemplation in a monastery or convent
  • Nun (Bible), a Biblical figure who is the father of Joshua, the right-hand man and successor of Moses
  • Nun, Elizabethan-era slang for a prostitute (a nunnery referred to a brothel as well as a genuine nunnery)

Places

  • Nun, the higher of the two major peaks of the Nun Kun massif in Kashmir, India
  • Nun River, Nigeria
  • Mount Nun, mountain in Jammu and Kashmir, India
  • Nun, an alternate spelling for Nu, the name by which ancient Egyptians called both the mysterious underworld from where life was renewed and the primordial god residing there (the name translates as "Abyss")

Animals

Other

  • Nun (letter), the fourteenth letter of many Semitic alphabets
  • Nun, a kind of sea mark
  • The Nuns, a San Francisco punk band
Nun (biblical figure)

Nun , in the Hebrew Bible, was a man from the Tribe of Ephraim, grandson of Ammihud, son of Elishama, and father of Joshua.

Nun grew up in and may have lived his entire life in the Israelites' Egyptian captivity, where the Egyptians "made life bitter for them with harsh labor at mortar and bricks and with all sorts of tasks in the field." In Aramaic, " nun" means "fish". Thus the Midrash tells: "[T]he son of him whose name was as the name of a fish would lead them [the Israelites] into the land." ( Genesis Rabba 97:3.)

Tradition places Nun's tomb near that of his son Joshua who, according to , is buried in Timnat Serah whereas in Judges 2:9 it is mentioned as Timnath-heres.. The similarly named Palestinian village of Kifl Hares/Timnat Hares, located northwest of Ariel in the Samarian region of the West Bank, now encircles both tombs.

Category:Hebrew Bible people

Usage examples of "nun".

She related to me in the most assuring manner that the handsomest of all the nuns in the convent loved her to distraction, gave her a French lesson twice a-day, and had amicably forbidden her to become acquainted with the other boarders.

Das war die Wahrheit, und sie war die schwerste aller Lasten, die es nun zu tragen galt.

You shall hear the history of an amour that lasted for two years with the fairest and the best of all the nuns of Venice.

Exile anchoress turns out to be just as much of a fraud as the ministering nun in the hospice for the dying.

Whitford should be on him and his, till they helped the poor in the spirit of the nuns of Whitford, and the Nun-pool ran up to Ashy Down.

Pique--Reconciliation--The First Meeting--A Philosophical Parenthesis My beautiful nun had not spoken to me, and I was glad of it, for I was so astonished, so completely under the spell of her beauty, that I might have given her a very poor opinion of my intelligence by the rambling answers which I should very likely have given to her questions.

Besides the Nun, our female members include a sinister Virgin Huntress who seems to have wreaked mayhem or worse on one of the auberge counselors in order to qualify as a recidivist, and an extremely cautious ex-Meta Lady who is, at the moment at least, content to remain just one of the boys.

The man with all the pots and pans on his bicycle, the nun eating the baguette as she trundles along, the old woman shooing the geese, the businessman in his car eating a cake and attempting to look important.

When she had left us, the nun began to weep bitterly, accusing herself of the murder of the lay-sister, and thinking that she saw hell opening beneath her feet.

When I was alone with the nun, whose face filled me with such burning recollections, I began to speak of her health, and especially of the inconveniences attached to child-birth.

It is very natural for me to suppose that to the two thoughtless acts of which you have been guilty, you have added another not less serious, namely, that of having boasted of your exploits with the other nuns, and I do not want to be the butt of your jokes in cell or parlour.

Then Boule le Suif, in low, humble tones, invited the nuns to partake of her repast.