sister

My sister is always driving me crazy.

A daughter of the same parents as another person; a female sibling.

Michelle left behind her bank job and became a sister at the local convent.

A female member of a religious order; especially one devoted to more active service; (informal) a nun.

Any butterfly in the genus Adelpha, so named for the resemblance of the dark-colored wings to the black habit traditionally worn by nuns.

(British) A senior or supervisory nurse, often in a hospital.

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 feet

1985, “Sisters Are Doin’ It for Themselves”, in Who’s Zoomin' Who?, performed by Eurythmics and Aretha Franklin:

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.

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:

And now, social media has made it worse. From Facebook to Twitter, I get all kinds of invitations. 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:

(African-American Vernacular, slang, sometimes capitalized) A black woman.

What’s up, sister?

"Listen, sister. I've got a job for you."

1932, Delos W. Lovelace, King Kong, published 1965, page 13:

(informal) A form of address to a woman.

Thank you, sister. I would like to thank the sister who just spoke.

A female fellow member of a religious community, church, trades union etc.

sister publication

sister city

sister projects

(attributively) An entity that has a special or affectionate, non-hierarchical relationship with another.

(computing theory) A node in a data structure that shares its parent with another node.

sister ships

sister facility

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 phylogenetic analysis of the monocotyledons based on morphological and molecular character sets, with comments on the placement of Acorus and Hydatellaceae”, in Karen L[ouise] Wilson, David A. Morrison, editors, Monocots: Systematics and Evolution, Collingwood, Vic.: CSIRO Publishing, →ISBN, page 21, column 1:

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.

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: Princeton University Press, →ISBN, page 220:

(usually attributively) Something in the same class.

en-noun

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

sisters (plural)
sistren (archaic plural)

desc

→ Gulf Arabic: سِسْتَر (sistar, “female nurse”)

→ Japanese: シスター (shisutā)

→ Korean: 시스터 (siseuteo)

妹妹

mui⁶⁻⁴ mui⁶⁻²

suster

a nun; a female member of a religious community

suster

any woman or girl with whom a bond is felt

abla

rude due to the implication of the woman being the older party

sisar-

attributively: of an entity that has a special relationship with another

PIE word
 *swésōr
From Middle English sister, suster, from Old English swustor, sweoster, sweostor (“sister, nun”); from Proto-Germanic *swestēr (“sister”), from Proto-Indo-European *swésōr (“sister”).
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.


sister

I’m trying to correct my sagging floor by sistering the joists.

(transitive, construction) To strengthen (a supporting beam) by fastening a second beam alongside it.

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 cherry

c. 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 Gosson, […], published 1609, →OCLC, [Act V, scene i]:

(obsolete, transitive) To be sister to; to resemble closely.

en-verb

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

sisters (present singular third-person)
sistering (participle present)
sistered (participle past)
sistered (past)

aufdoppeln

strengthen by fastening a second beam alongside