tonsure
the act of cutting the hair or shaving the head.
the shaving of the head or of some part of it as a religious practice or rite, especially in preparation for entering the priesthood or a monastic order.
the part of a cleric's head, usually the crown, left bare by shaving the hair.
the state of being shorn.
to confer the ecclesiastical tonsure upon.
to subject to tonsure.
Origin of tonsure
1Other words from tonsure
- un·ton·sured, adjective
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024
How to use tonsure in a sentence
We are ready for those noblemen and clergymen, for all the tonsured fraternity and their bishop to boot!
The Pilgrim's Shell or Fergan the Quarryman | Eugne SueMore than twenty years since, Richard Jefferies wrote about the tonsured priest becoming a power in English country lanes.
The Cornwall Coast | Arthur L. SalmonSurely this man died “in the odour of sanctity” as truly as Waltheof of Melrose or any tonsured saint of them all.
The tonsured white head was covered by a small skull-cap of purple velvet.
The Bastonnais | John LesperanceThe speaker was a man of sixty, short, stout, tonsured by the hand of time.
New Grub Street | George Gissing
British Dictionary definitions for tonsure
/ (ˈtɒnʃə) /
(in certain religions and monastic orders)
the shaving of the head or the crown of the head only
the part of the head left bare by shaving
the state of being shaven thus
(tr) to shave the head of
Origin of tonsure
1Derived forms of tonsure
- tonsured, adjective
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
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