sin
noun
transgression of divine law.
sin
1 American
[sin]
/ sɪn /
noun
-
transgression of divine law.
the sin of Adam.
-
any act regarded as such a transgression, especially a willful or deliberate violation of some religious or moral principle.
- Synonyms:
- wickedness, wrong
-
any reprehensible or regrettable action, behavior, lapse, etc.; great fault or offense.
It's a sin to waste time.
verb (used without object)
-
sins,
present (3rd person singular)
-
sinned,
past participle, past
-
sinning
present participle
-
to commit a sinful act.
- Synonyms:
- trespass, transgress
-
to offend against a principle, standard, etc.
verb (used with object)
-
sins,
present (3rd person singular)
-
sinned,
past participle, past
-
sinning
present participle
-
to commit or perform sinfully.
He sinned his crimes without compunction.
-
to bring, drive, etc., by sinning.
He sinned his soul to perdition.
sin
2
American
[seen]
/ sin /
noun
-
the 22nd letter of the Hebrew alphabet.
-
the consonant sound represented by this letter.
sin
3
American
abbreviation
Trigonometry.
sīn
4
American
[seen]
/ sin /
noun
Sin
5
American
[seen]
/ sin /
noun
sin
1
British
/ sɪn /
preposition
sin
2
British
/ saɪn /
abbreviation
sin
3
British
/ siːn /
noun
sin
4
British
/ sɪn /
noun
-
theol
-
transgression of God's known will or any principle or law regarded as embodying this
-
the condition of estrangement from God arising from such transgression See also actual sin mortal sin original sin venial sin
-
-
any serious offence, as against a religious or moral principle
-
any offence against a principle or standard
-
informal (of an unmarried couple) to live together
verb
-
theol to commit a sin
-
(usually foll by against) to commit an offence (against a person, principle, etc)
SIN
5
British
abbreviation
sin
Scientific
sin
Idioms
Synonym Usage
See crime.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
sinsimple
-
sinssimple
-
have sinnedperfect
-
has sinnedperfect
-
am sinningprogressive
-
are sinningprogressive
-
is sinningprogressive
-
have been sinningperfect progressive
-
has been sinningperfect progressive
Past
-
sinnedsimple
-
had sinnedperfect
-
was sinningprogressive
-
were sinningprogressive
-
had been sinningperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of sin1
First recorded before 900; Middle English noun sinne, sin(e), sen(ne), Old English syn(n) “moral or religious offense, misdeed”; akin to German Sünde, Old Norse synd, Latin sōns (inflectional stem sont- ) “guilty,” literally “that man being the one”; the verb is derivative of the noun; the Germanic and Latin forms all being present participle forms of the root es- “to be”; see origin at am ( def. )
Origin of sin2
First recorded in 1895–1900; from Hebrew śīn
Origin of sīn4
From Arabic
Explanation
You might not want to be the one at the party who takes the last piece of cake, but then again, it would be a sin to let it sit there, uneaten. A sin is a deeply regrettable action. The most common definition of sin is religious: it's an immoral act against God or divine law. Any serious offense, even if it's not religious, can be called a sin, and so can something less serious if you're talking about it in a joking way, as in, "You've got to buy those shoes — it would be an absolute sin not to." In math, sin is the abbreviation of sine, the trigonometric function.
Vocabulary lists containing sin
"We Real Cool" by Gwendolyn Brooks
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"The New England Primer"
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
She had converted to Catholicism in the 1990s, telling The Times: "To have a church which calls a sin a sin and has done with it is a blessed relief."
From BBC ● Jul. 10, 2026
On a recent episode of What Next, Lizzie O’Leary spoke to Nagle about how America’s original sin is written into who we are today.
From Slate ● Jul. 3, 2026
Was the leniency of Chess.com this tale’s original sin?
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 3, 2026
I asked Newson about the titular “one sin in Hollywood.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 1, 2026
I was committing the sin of embarrassing her in front of a guest.
From "The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate" by Jacqueline Kelly
I, sink, 76. sigenunft, sf. victory. sīhte, aj. shallow. silber, sn. silver. sim = si im. sin, sm. sense, mind, feeling; courage. sīn, pr. his; sīn sëlbes, of himself, 5, 11, 67.
From A Middle High German Primer Third Edition by Wright, Joseph
Sī koment underwīlen her die baȥ dā heime möhten sīn.
From A Middle High German Primer Third Edition by Wright, Joseph
Sigvaldi jarl lēt skotta við sīn skip, ok lagði ekki til orrostu.
From Icelandic Primer with Grammar, Notes and Glossary by Sweet, Henry
Dō brāhte man die vrouwen dā si in ligen vant. si huop sīn schœne houbet mit ir vil wīȥen hant; dō kuste s’ alsō tōten den edelen ritter guot.
From A Middle High German Primer Third Edition by Wright, Joseph
Sine, sīn, n. a straight line drawn from one extremity of an arc perpendicular to the diameter that passes through the other extremity.
From Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary (part 4 of 4: S-Z and supplements) by Various
Tip Toe followed Davies' award-winning series It's a Sin, about friends living in London during the HIV/Aids crisis in the 1980s.
From BBC ● Jul. 6, 2026
Las Vegas has suffered from uneven tourism trends as well as sports-betting competition, but analysts say there’s reason to believe things are looking up for Sin City.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 2, 2026
But analysts are growing more confident in a Las Vegas comeback, and MGM also isn’t as dependent on Sin City as some competitors.
From Barron's ● Jun. 1, 2026
The important rich people carried the day, and the Enhanced Games will take place in Sin City with temperatures forecast up to 95 degrees.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 21, 2026
He didn’t mention Sin on Sunday, but I could feel the words hanging in the air.
From "Cold Sassy Tree" by Olive Ann Burns
Pura Casilla, the governor of San Cristobal province, told Noticias SIN that the explosion occurred in a commercial area and greatly affected businesses near the town center.
From Seattle Times ● Aug. 15, 2023
The description for the folder Correspondence SIN reads:
From The Guardian ● Mar. 23, 2017
These may be labeled, for example, SIN , ARCSIN, or ASIN.
From Textbooks ● Feb. 13, 2015
Ms. Martin’s two-year-old fitness-concierge business, SIN Workouts, recommends and books group fitness classes such as SoulCycle for clients.
From New York Times ● Dec. 17, 2014
"Black Hand over Europe" by Henri Pozzi, 1935 THE SIN Yugoslavia was born in sin and in sin it perished.
From Terrorists and Freedom Fighters by Vaknin, Samuel
“The beauty of this narrative was that it not only absolved Jefferson and his fellow slaveholders of their sins; it absolved America as a whole,” Mr. Rasenberger writes.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 2, 2026
"If you list my sins, I sound like the worst person on Earth," he said in a TED interview in 2022.
From BBC ● Jun. 4, 2026
Those are the three deadly sins of trading.
From MarketWatch ● May 26, 2026
Starting in the fourth century, pilgrimages were served up by the church as a way for Christians to pay penance for their sins.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 25, 2026
And it’s a kind of relief, because these faces must be someone else’s sins, someone else’s darkness.
From "An Ember in the Ashes" by Sabaa Tahir
She danced and sinned and regretted and atoned, and then contradicted herself by doing it all over again.
From Salon ● Jul. 8, 2026
His lawyers argued that while he had engaged in bad behavior and sinned against his wife, he had not broken the law.
From Washington Post ● Apr. 2, 2023
After listing all those for whom she writes — “for the sinned against and the sanctifying” — Perry called for unity in difficult times:
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 17, 2022
Even if your daughters are, in some sense, more sinned against than sinning, you could reasonably worry that putting resources in their hands will allow them to support destructive causes.
From New York Times ● Mar. 1, 2022
And I sinned all right, just praying perfect little John Worth would turn on the crate wrong and go tumbling to the floor.
From "Worth" by A. LaFaye
His Adam is aptly named; he’s a biblical kind of hero, sinning and suffering.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 2, 2023
Crusaders came to expect standard privileges like the indulgence, a means to reduce the penance owed for sinning by giving money directly to the church or paying for masses or other clerical services.
From Textbooks ● Apr. 19, 2023
Even if your daughters are, in some sense, more sinned against than sinning, you could reasonably worry that putting resources in their hands will allow them to support destructive causes.
From New York Times ● Mar. 1, 2022
He insists he is a man more sinned against than sinning and is working with lawyers to clear his name.
From BBC ● Jul. 13, 2021
She told me about Hell and sinning and how we go to church to learn how to live in God’s image.
From "P.S. I Miss You" by Jen Petro-Roy
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
