Sister

How to spell sister

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce sister

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does sister mean?

1. nounA female who shares one or both parents with another person.
2. nounA member of a female religious community, often used as a title.

Sister in a sentence

• My younger sister moved into her first flat last weekend.

• A kindly sister greeted the visitors at the convent gate.

• He asked his older sister to help with the wedding plans.

• The hospital was founded by an order whose every nursing sister took vows.

Where does sister come from?

Language of origin: Old Norse

Sister is one of the deepest words in the language, going back to the ancient Proto-Indo-European root that meant something like 'one's own woman' or a woman of one's own kin group. Old English had the form sweostor, but the modern shape sister actually owes a great deal to Old Norse systir, brought by Scandinavian settlers, whose simpler form gradually reshaped the native English word during the medieval period. The same ancestral root spread across many related languages, surfacing as Schwester in German, soeur in French (through Latin soror), and even as the 'sorority' borrowed from that same Latin soror. Because the spelling settled into a plain, regular pattern long ago, the word is straightforward, and the only thing worth noticing is that it ends in the schwa-coloured -er, not -re. Its long, stable history is part of why it remains one of the most familiar kinship words in English.

How the word is built

• sister (whole-word native noun; from Old Norse systir, replacing Old English sweostor)