tonsured


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ton·sure

 (tŏn′shər)
n.
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.
tr.v. ton·sured, ton·sur·ing, ton·sures
To shave the head of.

[Middle English, from Old French, from Medieval Latin tōnsūra, from Latin, a shearing, from tōnsus, past participle of tondēre, to shear; see tem- in Indo-European roots.]
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:
Adj.1.tonsured - having a bald spot either shaved or naturaltonsured - having a bald spot either shaved or natural; "tonsured monks"
hairless - having no hair or fur; "a Mexican Hairless is about the size of a fox terrier and hairless except for a tufts on the head and tail"
Based on WordNet 3.0, Farlex clipart collection. © 2003-2012 Princeton University, Farlex Inc.
References in classic literature ?
"One garment was all that Norman of Torn would permit him, and as the sun was hot overhead he selected for the Bishop a bassinet for that single article of apparel, to protect his tonsured pate from the rays of old sol.
At the further end, in two high chairs as large as that of the Abbot, though hardly as elaborately carved, sat the master of the novices and the chancellor, the latter a broad and portly priest, with dark mirthful eyes and a thick outgrowth of crisp black hair all round his tonsured head.
And so it remains to all time a lasting record of human needs and human consolations; the voice of a brother who, ages ago, felt and suffered and renounced,--in the cloister, perhaps, with serge gown and tonsured head, with much chanting and long fasts, and with a fashion of speech different from ours,--but under the same silent far-off heavens, and with the same passionate desires, the same strivings, the same failures, the same weariness.
The tonsured Senator Ronald "Bato" de la Rosa may have put on the wrong hat when he called out progressive groups for the young people they attract in universities, and the youth for daring to be attracted.
He owes it to director Ram Bala of the famed 'Lollu Sabha' comic television series, who spotted the broad built man with a tonsured head among the onlookers during a shoot in Chennai.
Summary: Vaishali (Bihar) [India], June 27 (ANI): In a shocking incident, heads of a woman and her daughter were tonsured by a group of men in Bihar's Vaishali allegedly after they protested a molestation attempt.
School children with their head tonsured and dressed like Mahatma Gandhi perform yoga during an event at a school in Chennai yesterday.
One of the students even got her head tonsured. BHU students have alleged they have to face eve-teasers on the campus regularly and the varsity administration was not taking any action to stop the miscreants.
Syed Sha Atef Ali Al Quaderi, the vice- president of West Bengal United Minority Council, had announced a reward of ` 10 lakh to anybody who tonsured the Bollywood singer and garlanded him with old shoes.
Newspaper reports and photos of supporters of Jayalalithaa paying tribute by having their heads tonsured at the memorial where she was laid to rest in Chennai is another example of the blind devotion which was responsible for the God-like status she enjoyed amongst Tamilians.
It comprises a reproduction from the Bayeux Tapestry where a tonsured man in lay clothing appears to be aggressively, or at least assertively, touching the face of a veiled woman while a naked, squatting male figure mirrors the gesture of the cleric in the lower register.
Kings, presidents, maharajahs and pimply youths in the sixth form, 11 shone in resplendent white against a background of elegantly tonsured greensward.