tonsure

1. 1.

   the shaved crown of a monk's or priest's head

   Broaderpate
2. 2.

   shaving the crown of the head by priests or members of a monastic order

   Broadershave

1. 1.

   shave the head of a newly inducted monk

   Broadershave

Other forms of tonsure

plural

tonsures·

past tense

tonsured·

present participle

tonsuring·

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 tonsure

What does tonsure mean?

tonsure means "the shaved crown of a monk's or priest's head". That is the primary sense; the word has 3 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in tonsure?

tonsure has 2 syllables: ton-sure. The stress falls on "ton".

Is tonsure a common word?

tonsure is banded "Uncommon" — turns up in careful writing rather than conversation. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.