Word.ws English Dictionary

sister

Syllables: sis·ter/ˈsɪs.tə(ɹ)//ˈsɪs.tɚ/

sister noun: a daughter of the same parents as another person; a female sibling.

Noun (1)

sister (plural sisters or (archaic in most senses) sistren)

  1. A daughter of the same parents as another person; a female sibling.
    • My sister is always driving me crazy.
    Synonyms:
    sis
    Antonyms:
    brother
  2. 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.
    Synonyms:
    nun
  3. Any butterfly in the genus Adelpha, so named for the resemblance of the dark-colored wings to the black habit traditionally worn by nuns.
  4. (UK) A senior or supervisory nurse, often in a hospital.
    Synonyms:
    charge nurse
  5. 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.
    • Sisters are doing it for themselves / Standing on their own two feet1985, “Sisters Are Doin’ It for Themselves”, in Who’s Zoomin' Who?, performed by Eurythmics and Aretha Franklin
  6. (capitalized, slang, sometimes, African-American Vernacular) A black woman.
    • 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.2006, Noire [pseudonym], Thug-A-Licious: An Urban Erotic Tale, New York, N.Y.: One World, Ballantine Books, →ISBN, page 169
    • The short “naps” of the average Sister do not sway in the wind as that of a blonde.2009, Rajen Persaud, Why Black Men Love White Women, Simon and Schuster, →ISBN, page 171
  7. (informal) A form of address to a woman.
    • What’s up, sister?
    • "Listen, sister. I've got a job for you."1932, Delos W. Lovelace, King Kong, published 1965, page 13
    Synonyms:
    darling, dear, love, lady, miss, pet
  8. 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.
  9. (attributive) An entity that has a special or affectionate, non-hierarchical relationship with another.
    • sister publication
    • sister city
  10. A node in a data structure that shares its parent with another node.
  11. (attributive, usually) Something in the same class.
    • sister ships
    • sister facility
  12. One of two tornados that form in close proximity at the same time or in quick succession.

Verb

sister (third-person singular simple present sisters, present participle sistering, simple past and past participle sistered)

  1. (transitive) To strengthen (a supporting beam) by fastening a second beam alongside it.
    • I’m trying to correct my sagging floor by sistering the joists.
  2. (obsolete, transitive) To be sister to; to resemble closely.
    • Deep clerks she dumbs; and with her needle composes
      Nature's own shape, of bud, bird, branch, or berry,
      That even her art sisters the natural roses;
      Her inkle, silk, twin with the rubied cherryc. 1607–1608 (date written), William Shakespeare, [George Wilkins?], The Late, and Much Admired Play, Called Pericles, Prince of Tyre. […], London: […] [William White and Thomas Creede] for Henry...

Noun (2) capitalized: Sister

Sister (plural Sisters)

  1. Title of respect for an adult female member of a religious order.
    • At the convent, Sister Grace supervises the kitchen.
    • Please welcome Sister Smith as she moves from her former congregation to her new congregation.
  2. 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.
    • Sister Huerta was to have been our initial speaker this morning. However, we received word later this morning that Sister Huerta would be unable to attend our convention.1983, Official Proceedings, Resolutions, Constitution and Merger Agreement of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union Convention
    Synonyms:
    Sis., Sr., Ss.
  3. 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.

sister meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

sister in Hindi

woman or girl having the same parents
बहन bahan, बहिन bahin, हमशीरा hamśīrā

sister in Tamil

woman or girl having the same parents
அக்கா akkā, தங்கை taṅkai, சகோதரி cakōtari

sister in Marathi

woman or girl having the same parents
बहीण bahīṇ

sister in Urdu

woman or girl having the same parents
بَہَن bahan, بَہِن bahin, اُخْت uxt, ہَمشِیرَہ hamśīra
More languagesFewer languages
sister in Bengali
বোন bōn, আপা apa, বুবু bubu
sister in Telugu
సోదరి sōdari, అక్క akka, అక్కయ్య akkayya, చెల్లి celli
sister in Malayalam
സഹോദരി sahōdari, ചേച്ചി cēcci, ഇത്ത itta, പെങ്ങൾ peṅṅaḷ
sister in Kannada
ಅಕ್ಕ akka, ತಂಗಿ taṅgi
sister in Punjabi
ਭੈਣ bhaiṇ
sister in Gujarati
બેન ben
sister in Odia
ଭଉଣୀ bhauṇi
sister in Sanskrit
स्वसृ svásṛ, भगिनी bhaginī
sister in Sinhala
අක්කා akkā, නංගි naṁgi
sister in Assamese
বা ba, বাই bai, বাইদেউ baideu, ভনী bhoni
sister in Nepali
दिदी didī, बहिनी bahinī
sister in Pashto
خور xor
sister in Tagalog
kapatid na babae, ate, nene, ditse
sister in Arabic
أُخْت ʔuḵt, شَقِيقَة šaqīqa, أخت ʔoḵt, اِخْت iḵt
sister in Malay
kakak, adik perempuan
sister in Indonesian
saudari, kakak perempuan, adik perempuan, suster
sister in Persian
خوَاهَر xāhar, خْوَاهَر xwāhar, هَمْشِیرَه hamšīra, اُخْت uxt
sister in Thai
พี่สาว pîi-sǎao, น้องสาว nɔ́ɔng-sǎao
sister in Vietnamese
chị or chị gái, em gái, em, chị em
sister in Myanmar
အမ a.ma., ညီမ nyima.
Sindhi
ڀيڻَ bhēṇa, ديِديِ dīdī
Dhivehi
ދައްތަ datta, ކޮއްކޮ kokko
Kashmiri
بیٚنہِ beni

Examples of sister in a sentence

  • Recently a sister inboxed me on Facebook and told me that she knew for a fact that I wanted her and she wanted me.2014, J. L. King, Full Circle: Loving. Living. Life. After The Down Low:
  • 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.2000, Dennis W. Stevenson, Jerrold I. Davis, John V. Freudenstein, Christopher R. Hardy, Mark P. Simmons, Chelsea D. Specht, “A...
  • 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.2006, Linguistics, number 401, page 11:
  • The bee-eaters are sister to a clade that includes the rollers, ground-rollers, todies, motmots, and kingfishers (Cracraft 2013).2016, Bruce M. Beehler, Thane K. Pratt, Birds of New Guinea: Distribution, Taxonomy, and Systematics, Princeton, N.J.; Woodstock, Oxon...

All 40 example sentences with sister

Synonyms of sister

4 more synonymsFewer synonyms

Antonyms

All synonyms and antonyms of sister

Forms of sister

Noun
pluralsisters
pluralSisters
plural (archaic)sistren
Verb
third-person singular presentsisters
present participlesistering
past participlesistered
pastsistered

Plural of sister: sisters

Origin of sister

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”).

Words formed from sister

Phrases with sister

28 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with sister

4 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about sister

What does sister mean?
Sister means a daughter of the same parents as another person; a female sibling.
What is sister in Hindi?
Sister in Hindi is बहन (bahan), बहिन (bahin), हमशीरा (hamśīrā). See Sister meaning in Hindi.
How do you use sister in a sentence?
Recently a sister inboxed me on Facebook and told me that she knew for a fact that I wanted her and she wanted me.
What part of speech is sister?
Sister can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce sister?
Sister is pronounced /ˈsɪs.tə(ɹ)/ (UK).
What is the plural of sister?
The plural of sister is sisters.

Words near sister in the dictionary

  1. Sistani
  2. Sistani Persian
  3. Sistanis
  4. sistas
  5. sisted
  6. sister
  7. sister act
  8. sister acts
  9. sister block
  10. sister blocks
  11. sister chromatid

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: sister (page history and authors); Sister (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-uk-sister.ogg, LL-Q1860 (eng)-Naomi Persephone Amethyst (NaomiAmethyst)-sister.wav.

Cite this entry: “sister.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sister. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.