| The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000. |
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| tonsure |
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| SYLLABICATION: | ton·sure |
| PRONUNCIATION: |  t n sh r |
| NOUN: | 1. The act of shaving the head or part of the head, especially as a preliminary to becoming a priest or a member of a monastic order. 2. The part of a monk's or priest's head that has been shaved. | | TRANSITIVE VERB: | Inflected forms: ton·sured, ton·sur·ing, ton·sures
To shave the head of. | | ETYMOLOGY: | Middle English, from Old French, from Medieval Latin t ns ra, from Latin, a shearing, from tnsus, past participle of tond re, to shear. See tem- in Appendix I.
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| The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by the Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. |
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