Word.ws English Dictionary

tonsure

/ˈtɒn.ʃə(ɹ)/US/ˈtɑn.ʃɚ/

tonsure verb: to shave the crown of the head of (a person) as a sign of humility and religious vocation.

tonsure: to shave the crown of the head of (a person) as a sign of humility and religious vocation
Image: Fra Angelico, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Verb

tonsure (third-person singular simple present tonsures, present participle tonsuring, simple past and past participle tonsured)

  1. (transitive) To shave the crown of the head of (a person) as a sign of humility and religious vocation.

Noun

tonsure (plural tonsures)

  1. The hairstyle and characteristic bald patch resulting from being tonsured.
  2. A ritual shaving of this kind.

tonsure meaning in Hindi, Urdu, Malayalam and Kannada

tonsure in Hindi

ritual shaving of this kind
मुंडन muṇḍan

tonsure in Urdu

حجامت

tonsure in Malayalam

പട്ടംവെട്ട്, മൂർത്തീക്ഷൗരം, ചൗളകർമ്മം

tonsure in Kannada

ಶಿರಮುಂಡನ, ತಲೆ ಬೋಳಿಸುವಿಕೆ, ತಲೆಬೋಳಿಸು
More languagesFewer languages
tonsure in Assamese
চুড়াকৰণ surakoron
tonsure in Tagalog
panot

Forms of tonsure

Verb
third-person singular presenttonsures
present participletonsuring
past participletonsured
pasttonsured
Noun
pluraltonsures

Origin of tonsure

From Middle English tonsure, from Anglo-Norman and Old French tonsure, from Latin tonsūra (“a clipping, trimming”), from tondeō (“shear, clip, trim”).

Words formed from tonsure

Questions about tonsure

What does tonsure mean?
Tonsure means to shave the crown of the head of (a person) as a sign of humility and religious vocation.
What is tonsure in Hindi?
Tonsure in Hindi is मुंडन (muṇḍan). See Tonsure meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is tonsure?
Tonsure can be a verb or a noun.
How do you pronounce tonsure?
Tonsure is pronounced /ˈtɒn.ʃə(ɹ)/ (UK).
What is the past tense of tonsure?
The past tense of tonsure is tonsured.

Words near tonsure in the dictionary

  1. tonsorially
  2. tonsors
  3. tonstein
  4. tonsteins
  5. tonsular
  6. tonsure
  7. tonsured
  8. tonsures
  9. tonsuring
  10. Tonsåsen
  11. Tonteg

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: tonsure (page history and authors); tonsure (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); tonsure (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); tonsure (Kannada Wiktionary) (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: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-tonsure.wav.

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