sister
pronunciation
How to pronounce sister in British English:
UK [ˈsɪstə(r)]
How to pronounce sister in American English:
US [ˈsɪstər]
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- Noun:
- a female person who has the same parents as another person
- a female person who is a fellow member of a sorority or labor union or other group
- sometimes used as a term of address for attractive young women
Word Origin
- sister
- sister: [OE] Sister is one of a widespread family of ‘sister’-words that go back ultimately to Indo- European *swesor. Amongst its other descendants are Latin soror (source of French soeur, Italian sorella, and Romanian sora, not to mention English sorority [16]), Russian, Czech, and Serbo-Croat sestra, Polish siostra, Welsh chwaer, Breton c’hoar, Lithuanian sesuo, and Sanskrit svasar-. To prehistoric Germanic it contributed *swestr, which has evolved into German schwester, Dutch zuster, Swedish syster, Danish søster, and English sister. English cousin goes back ultimately to a compound based on *swesor, the Old Latin antecedent of soror.=> sorority
- sister (n.)
- mid-13c., from Old English sweostor, swuster "sister," or a Scandinavian cognate (Old Norse systir, Swedish syster, Danish søster), in either case from Proto-Germanic *swestr- (cognates: Old Saxon swestar, Old Frisian swester, Middle Dutch suster, Dutch zuster, Old High German swester, German Schwester, Gothic swistar). These are from PIE *swesor, one of the most persistent and unchanging PIE root words, recognizable in almost every modern Indo-European language (Sanskrit svasar-, Avestan shanhar-, Latin soror, Old Church Slavonic, Russian sestra, Lithuanian sesuo, Old Irish siur, Welsh chwaer, Greek eor). French soeur "a sister" (11c., instead of *sereur) is directly from Latin soror, a rare case of a borrowing from the nominative case. According to Klein's sources, probably from PIE roots *swe- "one's own" + *ser- "woman." For vowel evolution, see bury. Used of nuns in Old English; of a woman in general from 1906; of a black woman from 1926; and in the sense of "fellow feminist" from 1912. Meaning "female fellow-Christian" is from mid-15c. Sister act "variety act by two or more sisters" is from vaudeville (1908).
Antonym
Example
- 1. And her treacherous sister judah saw it .
- 2. John has seen his sister allison succeed .
- 3. But why would having a sister make you happier ?
- 4. The sisters attend a wake for sister patricia on march 4 , 2010 .
- 5. My sister had just started her first job , and had a boyfriend .