nun

The English word nun is recorded in Old English as nunne by the early medieval period. It referred to a woman under religious vows living in a monastic community. Old English took it from Late Latin nonna, a word used for a nun and also for an older woman in household or respectful address. The form was already circulating widely in Christian Europe by late antiquity.

Late Latin nonna has a family resemblance to forms used for nurse, elder, or familiar female address across Mediterranean speech. By the sixth century, monastic usage had fixed it as a title for a religious woman. The masculine counterpart nonnus also existed in church Latin. A domestic word had become a monastic one.

As Christianity spread in Anglo-Saxon England after 597 CE, the church brought both institutions and vocabulary. Nunne settled naturally into English religious life alongside monk and abbess. After the Norman Conquest, the shorter spelling nun gained ground in Middle English. The pronunciation simplified while the reference stayed precise.

Modern English nun means a woman who belongs to a religious order and lives under vows, usually of poverty, chastity, and obedience. The word is most strongly associated with Roman Catholic and Orthodox traditions, though it is used more broadly as well. Its history joins kinship language to religious discipline. A household title became a consecrated name.