sister
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈsɪs.tə(ɹ)/
enpr: sĭs'tər
ipa: /ˈsɪs.tɚ/
rhymes: -ɪstə(ɹ)
homophone: cister
Forms: form: sisters
form: sistren
raw_tags: in most senses
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”), 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”).
Senses: examples: text: My sister is always driving me crazy.
synonyms: word: sis
antonyms: brother
hypernyms: sibling
glosses: A daughter of the same parents as another person; a female sibling.
examples: text: Michelle left behind her bank job and became a sister at the local convent.
synonyms: nun
coordinate_terms: brother
friar
frater
glosses: A female member of a religious order; especially one devoted to more active service; (informal) a nun.
glosses: Any butterfly in the genus Adelpha, so named for the resemblance of the dark-colored wings to the black habit traditionally worn by nuns.
synonyms: charge nurse
glosses: A senior or supervisory nurse, often in a hospital.
examples: text: Connie was very close to her friend Judy and considered her to be her sister.
text: Sisters are doing it for themselves / Standing on their own two feet
ref: 1985, “Sisters Are Doin’ It for Themselves”, in Who’s Zoomin' Who?, performed by Eurythmics and Aretha Franklin:
glosses: 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.
examples: text: 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.
ref: 2006, Noire [pseudonym], Thug-A-Licious: An Urban Erotic Tale, New York, N.Y.: One World, Ballantine Books, →ISBN, page 169:
text: The short “naps” of the average Sister do not sway in the wind as that of a blonde.
ref: 2009, Rajen Persaud, Why Black Men Love White Women, Simon and Schuster, →ISBN, page 171:
text: And now, social media has made it worse. From Facebook to Twitter, I get all kinds of invitations. Recently a sister inboxed me on Facebook and told me that she knew for a fact that I wanted her and she wanted me.
ref: 2014, J. L. King, Full Circle: Loving. Living. Life. After The Down Low:
qualifier: African-American Vernacular
glosses: A black woman.
examples: text: What’s up, sister?
text: "Listen, sister. I've got a job for you."
ref: 1932, Delos W. Lovelace, King Kong, published 1965, page 13:
synonyms: word: darling
word: dear
word: love
word: lady
word: miss
word: pet
glosses: A form of address to a woman.
examples: text: Thank you, sister. I would like to thank the sister who just spoke.
glosses: A female fellow member of a religious community, church, trades union etc.
examples: text: sister publication
text: sister city
text: sister projects
synonyms: affiliate
affiliated
glosses: An entity that has a special or affectionate, non-hierarchical relationship with another.
topics: computing
computing-theory
engineering
mathematics
natural-sciences
physical-sciences
sciences
glosses: A node in a data structure that shares its parent with another node.
examples: text: sister ships
text: sister facility
text: Within the ABCZ clade, Arecanae are sister of a group that includes all of the other taxa, and the latter fall into two major clades.
ref: 2000, Dennis W. Stevenson, Jerrold I. Davis, John V. Freudenstein, Christopher R. Hardy, Mark P. Simmons, Chelsea D. Specht, “A phylogenetic analysis of the monocotyledons based on morphological and molecular character sets, with comments on the placement of Acorus and Hydatellaceae”, in Karen L[ouise] Wilson, David A. Morrison, editors, Monocots: Systematics and Evolution, Collingwood, Vic.: CSIRO Publishing, →ISBN, page 21, column 1:
text: Karimi (1999) and Cheng et al. (1997), among others, on the other hand, assume that specific objects are base-generated at SpecVP, whereas nonspecific objects are sister of V.
ref: 2006, Linguistics, number 401, page 11:
text: The bee-eaters are sister to a clade that includes the rollers, ground-rollers, todies, motmots, and kingfishers (Cracraft 2013).
ref: 2016, Bruce M. Beehler, Thane K. Pratt, Birds of New Guinea: Distribution, Taxonomy, and Systematics, Princeton, N.J.; Woodstock, Oxon: Princeton University Press, →ISBN, page 220:
glosses: Something in the same class.
glosses: One of two tornados that form in close proximity at the same time or in quick succession.
Coordinate terms: brother
brethren
Derived terms: 3/4 sister
baby sister
Big Sister
big sister
blood sister
cister
co-sister
co-sister-in-law
cousin-sister
cousin sister
Five Sisters
foresister
foster sister
frail sister
full-sisterlaw
godsister
half-sister
half sister
intersister
kid sister
kiss your sister
little sister
mersister
milk-sister
milk sister
my sister in Christ
nonsister
older sister
Pavlof Sister
pegasister
scissor sister
Scotch sister
Seven Sisters
sis
sissy
sister act
sister block
sistercest
sister chromatid
sister chromatid cohesion
sister city
sister clip
sister company
sisterdom
sister from another mister
sisterfucking
sister-german
sistergirl
sisterhood
sister hook
sister humper
sister-in-arms
sister in Christ
sister-in-law
sisterji
sisterkin
sisterkins
sister language
sisterless
sisterlike
sisterlocks
sisterly
Sister Minor
Sister Minoress
sister minoress
sister-out-law
sister planet
sister republic
sisters before misters
sistership
sister ship
sisterson
sister wife
sister-wife
sob sister
soul sister
stepsister
supersister
three-quarter sister
Three Sisters
ugly sister
unsister
weak sister
weird sister
White Sister
younger sister
Related terms: sororal
sistren
suster
sustah