tonsure

American  

[ton-sher] / ˈtɒn ʃər /

noun

1. the act of cutting the hair or shaving the head.

2. the shaving of the head or of some part of it as a religious practice or rite, especially in preparation for entering the priesthood or a monastic order.

3. the part of a cleric's head, usually the crown, left bare by shaving the hair.

4. the state of being shorn.

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verb (used with object)

• tonsures,
  present (3rd person singular)
• tonsured,
  past participle,  past
• tonsuring
  present participle

1. to confer the ecclesiastical tonsure upon.

2. to subject to tonsure.

tonsure British  

/ ˈtɒnʃə /

noun

1. 1. the shaving of the head or the crown of the head only

   2. the part of the head left bare by shaving

   3. the state of being shaven thus

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verb

1. (tr) to shave the head of

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• tonsured
  adjective
• untonsured
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Participles

• tonsuring
  present
• tonsured
  past

Conjugated Forms

Present

• tonsure
  simple
• tonsures
  simple
• have tonsured
  perfect
• has tonsured
  perfect
• am tonsuring
  progressive
• are tonsuring
  progressive
• is tonsuring
  progressive
• have been tonsuring
  perfect progressive
• has been tonsuring
  perfect progressive

Past

• tonsured
  simple
• had tonsured
  perfect
• was tonsuring
  progressive
• were tonsuring
  progressive
• had been tonsuring
  perfect progressive

Future

• will tonsure
  simple
• will have tonsured
  perfect
• will be tonsuring
  progressive
• will have been tonsuring
  perfect progressive

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Etymology

Origin of tonsure

1350–1400; Middle English < Latin tōnsūra a shearing, equivalent to tōns ( us ) (past participle of tondēre to shear, clip, shave) + -ūra -ure

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Explanation

If you are a monk that shaves all or some of your hair for religious reasons, that bald spot is called a tonsure. The act of creating that spot is also known as tonsure. In Buddhism, Hinduism and Christianity, hair is often considered a vanity. Men entering a religious order choose a tonsure as a way of denouncing the vanity and worldly ways represented by hair. At one time, tonsure was required if you wanted to enter the clergy, though today it rarely is. The tonsure represents a commitment to a more austere and less proud lifestyle.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

tonsure tonsures tonsured tonsuring

St. Francis, unmistakable from his tonsure, his chestnut robe and his stigmata, looks lovingly at the Christ Child.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 11, 2026

Its detailed design includes a crowned Virgin Mary holding the Christ child and kneeling to her right is a monk looking up at her, identified by his tonsure.

From BBC ● Nov. 19, 2023

There was his look: hoodies and tracksuits, a three-day beard, and a strawberry-blond tonsure like a medieval monk’s.

From New York Times ● Apr. 13, 2021

Instead, its hair is black, like mine, and raggedly scuttles onto his forehead like the tonsure of a Tibetan yak left out in the rain.

From Washington Post ● Jul. 6, 2020

When Father Alphonse sees me, he reddens to the very roots of his sparse tonsure.

From "Ophelia" by Lisa Klein

There were clerks with neat little skull-caps to keep their tonsures warm, dressed in sober clothes which contrasted with the laity.

From "The Once and Future King" by T. H. White

They wear tonsures on their heads the opposite of ours; that is to say, that, where ours shave they wear hair, and where we have the hair they shave it.

From A Description of the Coasts of East Africa and Malabar in the Beginning of the Sixteenth Century by Duarte Barbosa

They were both tall men, and they stood with their cowls over their tonsures, in the conventual attitude, their hands tucked away into the ample sleeves of their brown habits.

From The Strolling Saint; being the confessions of the high and mighty Agostino D'Anguissola, tyrant of Mondolfo and Lord of Carmina in the state of Piacenza by Rafael Sabatini

Otherwise, in common with the Church, Buddhism has saints, censers, litanies, tonsures, holy water, fasts, and confession.

From The Lords of the Ghostland A History of the Ideal by Edgar Saltus

They are naked—crowns, mitres, and tonsures alone remaining to distinguish their office.

From Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Wells A Description of Its Fabric and a Brief History of the Episcopal See by Percy Dearmer

In both we see Vos in a smoke-colored hooded robe, kneeling before Mary, his hair severely tonsured.

From New York Times ● Nov. 22, 2018

But, he was blessed by Archbishop Benjamin in 2011 and says he’s the first official tonsured bell-ringer in the United States since the Russian Revolution.

From Seattle Times ● Oct. 12, 2017

But there he was in the margins, instantly, totally recognizable: brown-robed, bearded, tonsured, on his knees, hands and eyes directed skyward, giving himself to God and to his fellow creatures alike.

From The New Yorker ● Jan. 22, 2015

A gaggle of monks in brown habits, their heads tonsured in repentant horseshoes, rises and begins to chant.

From Salon ● Jun. 4, 2014

Now he was small and wizened, with sparse gray tonsured hair.

From "Crispin: The Cross of Lead" by Avi

In basements they could see through half-open doors at the bottom of ladderlike steps, earnest-faced men, with long, well-tended queues of hair, busily tonsuring sleepy clients.

From The Port of Adventure by A. M. (Alice Muriel) Williamson

We see King perhaps laid aside; not tonsured, tonsuring is out of fashion now; but say, sent away any whither, with handsome annual allowance, and stock of smith-tools.

From The French Revolution by Thomas Carlyle

In Bogle's time "thunder-stones" were still used for tonsuring the lamas, and even now stone cooking-pots are found amongst the shepherds of the uplands, although they are acquainted both with copper and iron.

From Man, Past and Present by Alfred Court Haddon

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