beguine

Other forms of beguine

plural

beguines·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about beguine

What does beguine mean?

beguine means "(Roman Catholic Church) a member of a lay sisterhood (one of several founded in the Netherlands in the 12th and 13th centuries); though not taking religious vows the sisters followed an austere life". That is the primary sense; the word has 3 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in beguine?

beguine has 3 syllables and divides as be-gu-ine under the regular spelling rules. It is not in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, so that comes from how the word is written rather than from a recorded pronunciation, and no stress or phonetic transcription is claimed for it.

Is beguine a common word?

beguine is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.