“Sisters” is a form of
sister
UK /ˈsɪs.tə(ɹ)/ · US /ˈsɪs.tɚ/ noun, verb
Forms sisters sistren sistering sistered
- noun A daughter of the same parents as another person; a female sibling. “My sister is always driving me crazy.”
- 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.”
- noun Any butterfly in the genus Adelpha, so named for the resemblance of the dark-colored wings to the black habit traditionally worn by nuns.
- noun (UK) A senior or supervisory nurse, often in a hospital.
- 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.”
- noun (African-American Vernacular, slang, sometimes capitalized) A black woman.
- noun (informal) A form of address to a woman. “What’s up, sister?”
- 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.”
- verb (transitive, construction) To strengthen (a supporting beam) by fastening a second beam alongside it. “I’m trying to correct my sagging floor by sistering the joists.”
- verb (obsolete, transitive) To be sister to; to resemble closely.
- noun Title of respect for an adult female member of a religious order. “At the convent, Sister Grace supervises the kitchen.”
- noun Title of respect for an adult female member of a fraternal/sororal organization, or comrade in a movement, or even a stranger using fictive kin.
- noun A title used to personify or respectfully refer to concepts or animals. “Native American leader Chief Seattle urged ecological responsibility, referring to Brother Eagle and Sister Sky in his purported 1854 speech.”
Synonyms
sis nun charge nurse darling dear love lady miss pet affiliate affiliated Sis. Sr. Ss. baby babe
Antonyms
Etymology
Inherited from Middle English suster, from Old English sweostor, from Proto-West Germanic *swester, from Proto-Germanic *swestēr, from Proto-Indo-European *swésōr.
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”), Albanian vajzë (“girl, maiden”), Sanskrit स्वसृ (svásṛ, “sister”), Persian خواهر (xâhar, “sister”).
In standard English, the form with i is due to contamination with Old Norse systir (“sister”).
The plural sistren is from Middle English sistren, a variant plural of sister, suster (“sister”); compare brethren.
The sense for "Adelpha-genus butterfly" is a semantic loan from translingual Adelpha, itself from Ancient Greek ἀδελφή (adelphḗ, “sister”).
Webster’s 1913
- noun A female who has the same parents with another person, or who has one of them only. In the latter case, she is more definitely called a half sister. The correlative of brother.
- noun A woman who is closely allied to, or assocciated with, another person, as in the sdame faith, society, order, or community. James ii. 15.
- verb To be sister to; to resemble closely. [Obs.] Shak.
Etymology [OE. sister, fr. Icel. systir; also suster, from AS. sweostor, sweoster, swuster, akin to OFries. sweester, suster, LG. süster, suster, D. zuster, OS. & OHG. swestar, G. schwester, Icel. systir, Sw. syster, Dan. söster, Goth. swistar, Lith. ses, Russ. sestra, Pol. siostra, L. soror, Skr. svasr. sq. root298. Cf. Cousin.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “sister”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details