nun

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Definition: devoted woman in church
Antonyms: monk

Nun is a term used to describe a woman who has professed vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience within the Roman Catholic tradition. Technically it applies to women living in a cloistered community, but it is now often used to refer to religious women active in ministry to the world. The more traditional term for such women is "sister." Orders for women were established by Saints Basil, Benedict, Augustine, and Francis. Today nuns carry out much of the behind-the-scenes work of education and ministering to the sick and needy.

Sources: Douglas, J. D., ed. The New International Dictionary of the Christian Church. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing, 1974.

Usual English translation of the Sanskrit word bhikṣunī (Pāli, bhikkhunī). In this sense the term refers only to fully ordained member of the Saṃgha. In various parts of the Buddhist world there are orders of women who devote themselves to the religious life but are not fully ordained. These usually follow a lesser number of precepts, such as the dasa silmātā of Sri Lanka.

Quotes:

"Convent. A place of retirement for women who wish for leisure to meditate upon the sin of idleness." - Ambrose Bierce

"The convent, which belongs to the West as it does to the East, to antiquity as it does to the present time, to Buddhism and Muhammadanism as it does to Christianity, is one of the optical devices whereby man gains a glimpse of infinity." - Victor Hugo

"A nun, at best, is only half a woman, just as a priest is only half a man." - H. L. Mencken

"Come, pensive nun, devout and pure, sober steadfast, and demure, all in a robe of darkest grain, flowing with majestic train." - John Milton

"She gave up beauty in her tender youth, gave all her hope and joy and pleasant ways; she covered up her eyes lest they should gaze on vanity, and chose the bitter truth." - Christina Rossetti

"The sight of a Black nun strikes their sentimentality; and, as I am unalterably rooted in native ground, they consider me a work of primitive art, housed in a magical color; the incarnation of civilized, anti-heathenism, and the fruit of a triumphing idea." - Alice Walker

See more famous quotes about Nuns

Graduates of parochial schools have numerous associations with nuns that go beyond the scope of this book. Otherwise, nuns can represent everything from spirituality to religious authority to sexual repression.

• pigeon
• Individuals and Titles - nun: woman living in cloistered religious order, either Christian or Buddhist

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← Mem Nun Samekh →
Phoenician	Hebrew	Aramaic	Syriac	Arabic
	נ,ן		ܢܢ	ن‍,ن
Alphabetic derivatives		Greek	Latin	Cyrillic
		Ν	N	Н
Phonemic representation:				n
Position in alphabet:				14
Numerical (Gematria/Abjad) value:				50

Nun is the fourteenth letter of many Semitic abjads, including Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew נ and Arabic alphabet nūn ن (in abjadi order). It is the third letter in Thaana (ނ), pronounced as "noonu". Its sound value is [n].

The Phoenician letter gave rise to the Greek nu (Ν), Etruscan 𐌍, Latin N, and Cyrillic Н.

Contents 1 Origins 2 Hebrew Nun 2.1 Pronunciation 2.2 Variations 2.3 Significance 3 Arabic nūn 4 See also

Origins

Semitic alphabets
Phoenician (c.1050 – 200 BCE)
𐤀‎   𐤁‎   𐤂‎   𐤃‎   𐤄‎ 𐤅‎   𐤆‎   𐤇‎   𐤈‎   𐤉‎ 𐤊‎   𐤋‎   𐤌‎   𐤍‎   𐤎‎ 𐤏‎   𐤐‎   𐤑‎   𐤒‎   𐤓‎ 𐤔‎   𐤕‎ Semitic abjads
Hebrew (400 BCE – present)
א  ב  ג  ד  ה  ו ז  ח  ט  י  כך ל  מם  נן  ס  ע  פף צץ  ק  ר  ש  ת History · Transliteration Niqqud · Dagesh · Gematria Cantillation · Numeration
Syriac (200 BCE – present)
ܐ  ܒ  ܓ  ܕ  ܗ  ܘ ܙ  ܚ  ܛ  ܝ  ܟܟ  ܠ ܡܡ  ܢܢ  ܣ  ܥ  ܦ ܨ  ܩ  ܪ  ܫ  ܬ
Arabic (400 CE – present)
ا   ب   ت   ث   ج   ح خ   د   ذ   ر   ز   س ش   ص   ض   ط   ظ ع   غ   ف   ق   ك ل   م   ن   ه   و   ي History · Transliteration Diacritics · Hamza ء Numerals · Numeration
v t e

Nun (Hebrew: נ) is thought to have come from a pictogram of a snake (the Hebrew word for snake, nachash begins with a Nun and snake in Aramaic is nun) or eel. Some have hypothesized a hieroglyph of a fish in water for its origin (in Arabic, nūn means large fish or whale). The Phoenician letter was named nūn "fish", but the glyph has been suggested to descend from a hypothetical Proto-Canaanite naḥš "snake", based on the name in Ethiopic, ultimately from a hieroglyph representing a snake,

(see Middle Bronze Age alphabets). Naḥš in modern Arabic literally means "bad luck". The cognate letter in Ge'ez and descended Semitic languages of Ethiopia is nehas, which also means "brass".

Hebrew Nun

Orthographic variants
position in word	Various Print Fonts			Cursive Hebrew	Rashi Script
	Serif	Sans-serif	Monospaced
non final	נ	נ	נ
final	ן	ן	ן

Hebrew spelling: נוּן

Pronunciation

Nun represents an alveolar nasal, (IPA: /n/), like the English letter N.

Variations

Nun, like Kaph, Mem, Pe, and Tzadi, has a final form, used at the end of words. Its shape changes from נ to ן. There are also nine instances of an inverted nun (׆) in the Tanakh.

Significance

In gematria, Nun represents the number 50. Its final form represents 700 but this is rarely used, Tav and Shin (400+300) being used instead.

As in Arabic, nun as an abbreviation can stand for neqevah, feminine. In medieval Rabbinic writings, Nun Sophit (Final Nun) stood for "Son of" (Hebrew ben or ibn).

Nun is also one of the seven letters which receive a special crown (called a tagin) when written in a Sefer Torah. See Shin, Ayin, Teth, Gimmel, Zayin, and Tzadi.

In the game of dreidel, a rolled Nun passes play to the next player with no other action.

Arabic nūn

The letter is named nūn, and is written is several ways depending in its position in the word:

Position in word:	Isolated	Final	Medial	Initial
Glyph form:	ن‎	ـن‎	ـنـ‎	نـ‎

Some examples on its uses in Modern Standard Arabic:

Nūn is used as a suffix indicating present-tense plural feminine nouns; for example هِيَ تَكْتُب hiya taktub ("she writes") becomes هُنَّ تَكْتَبْنَ hunna taktabna ("they [feminine] write").

Nūn is also used as the prefix for first-person plural imperfective/present tense verbs. Thus هُوَ يَكْتُب huwwa yaktub ("he writes") → نَحْنُ نَكْتُب naḥnu naktub ("we write").

See also

• Nunation
• Setaceous Hebrew Character (Xestia c-nigrum) - a moth of the family Noctuidae.

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v t e Arabic · العربية Overviews Language · Alphabet · History · Romanization · Numerology · Influence on other languages Alphabet Arabic numerals · Eastern numerals · Arabic braille · Diacritics · Hamza · Tāʾ marbūṭah Letters ʾAlif · Bāʾ · Tāʾ · Ṯāʾ · Ǧīm · Ḥāʾ · Ḫāʾ · Dāl · Ḏāl · Rāʾ · Zayn · Sīn · Šīn · Ṣād · Ḍād · Ṭāʾ · Ẓāʾ · ʿAyn · Ġayn · Fāʾ · Qāf · Kāf · Lām · Mīm · Nūn · Hāʾ · Wāw · Yāʾ Eras Ancient North Arabian · Classical · Modern Notable varieties Standardized: Modern Standard Arabic, Regional: Egyptian · Iraqi · Levantine · Maghrebi · Sudanese · Arabian · Judeo-Arabic Academic Literature · Names Linguistics Phonology · Sun and moon letters · ʾIʿrāb (inflection) · Grammar · Triliteral root · Mater lectionis · IPA · Quranic Arabic Corpus

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Dansk (Danish)
1.
n. - nonne

2.
n. - det 14. bogstav i det hebraiske alfabet

Nederlands (Dutch)
non, blauw-/pimpelmees

Français (French)
1.
n. - religieuse, bonne s¯ur

2.
n. - noun (quatorzième lettre de l'alphabet hébraïque)

Deutsch (German)
1.
n. - Nonne

2.
n. - 14. Buchstabe des hebräischen Alphabets

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - (θρησκ.) καλόγρια, μοναχή

Italiano (Italian)
suora

Português (Portuguese)
n. - freira (f), canário-da-terra (m) (Ornit.)

Русский (Russian)
монахиня

Español (Spanish)
1.
n. - monja, religiosa, mujer que pertenece a una orden religiosa

2.
n. - decimocuarta letra del alfabeto hebreo

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - klippduva, nunna, blåmes, nunnefjäril

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
1. 修女, 尼姑

2. 修女, 尼姑

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
1.
n. - 修女, 尼姑

2.
n. - 修女, 尼姑

한국어 (Korean)
1.
n. - 수녀

2.
n. - 히브리 알파벳의 14번째 글자

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 修道女

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) راهبه‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮נזירה‬
n. - ‮האות נון‬

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