# sin

Pronunciation: say "SIN" /sɪn/

## Noun

1. An act that breaks religious law or goes against divine will.
   - Simple: A wrong act that breaks the rules of a religion or goes against what God wants.
   - _Some believers regard even a small lie as a sin against God._
   - _In confession, he named his sins one by one and asked for absolution._
2. The condition of being sinful; moral corruption or wickedness in general.
   - Simple: The state of being wicked or doing evil things.
   - _The novel paints the frontier town as a den of sin and corruption._
   - _Medieval preachers described humankind as sunk in sin and in need of grace._
3. A wrongful or regrettable act of any kind, or a serious fault or flaw in something such as a film or a plan.
   - Simple: Something wrong or a bad mistake, not in a religious sense, such as the worst fault in a film.
   - _The paper's real sin was not the error itself but the cover-up that followed._
   - _The film's greatest sin is that it turns a fascinating true story into something dull._
6. Short for sin bin: in sports such as rugby and ice hockey, the area where a penalized player must sit out for a set time.
   - Simple: Short for sin bin: the place where a player must sit out for a while after breaking a rule.
9. A sacrifice offered on account of sin; a sin offering.
   - Simple: Something offered to God to make up for people's sins.
11. The Hebrew letter shin written with a dot above its upper left (שׂ), standing for the sound s rather than sh. (pronounced: say "SEEN" US /sin/, UK /siːn/)
   - Simple: The Hebrew letter shin with a dot on its top left (שׂ), which is said like s.
   - _In unpointed Hebrew text, a sin looks exactly like a shin, so readers rely on the word to tell them apart._
   - _The teacher pointed out that the dot sits on the left of a sin and on the right of a shin._
12. A letter of the Arabic alphabet, written س. (pronounced: say "SEEN" US /sin/, UK /siːn/)
   - Simple: One of the letters of the Arabic alphabet, written س.
   - _Arabic learners often mix up sin and shin, which has the same basic shape but three dots above it._
   - _In the Arabic inscription, the calligrapher stretched the sin into one long, flat stroke._

## Verb

4. To act against divine will or break a religious law; more loosely, to do wrong against a moral or social standard.
   - Simple: To do something wrong that goes against God, a religion's rules, or what is right.
   - _Many faiths teach that people can sin in thought as well as in deed._
   - _The preacher said that anyone who sins against a neighbor sins against God as well._

## Symbol

Pronunciation: say "SYN" /saɪn/

5. The symbol for sine, the trigonometric function.
   - Simple: A short way to write sine, a math function used with angles.
   - _The graph of y = sin x repeats itself every 2π radians._
   - _The alternating voltage can be written as V sin(ωt), where ω is the angular frequency._

## Proper noun · Sin

Pronunciation: say "SEEN" US /sin/, UK /siːn/

7. The moon god of Akkadian, Assyrian and Babylonian mythology.
   - Simple: The moon god in the old myths of Babylon, Assyria and nearby lands.
   - _A crescent moon, the emblem of Sin, is carved at the top of the boundary stone._
   - _The king rebuilt the temple of Sin and filled it with rich offerings._

## Noun · SIN

8. Short for social insurance number: a nine-digit number issued by the Canadian government to eligible people for work, taxes and government benefits. *(Canada)*
   - Simple: Short for social insurance number: a number the Canadian government gives eligible people for work, taxes and benefits.
   - _Enter your SIN on the first page of your tax return before you file._
   - _The bank asked for her SIN before opening the investment account._

## Noun

10. A person who embodies sin; someone extremely wicked. *(archaic)*
   - Simple: A very wicked person who seems to be evil in human form.

## Other meanings

- (proper noun) A desert named in the Hebrew Bible, lying between Elim and Mount Sinai.
- (proper noun) Short for Sinaloa: a state in northwestern Mexico on the Pacific coast, used especially in addresses and tables.

## Origin

**Meanings 1–4, 6, 9–10** — The deepest root is Proto-Indo-European *h₁es- ("to be"), which formed *h₁sónts ("being, true"), suggesting a verdict that someone accused was "truly guilty." From this came Proto-Germanic *sundī or *sundijō ("sin") and *sunjō ("truth, excuse"), then Proto-West Germanic *sunnju, Old English synn ("sin"), and Middle English sinne. Old English sōþ ("true," see sooth) is related, and suttee is a doublet. Cognates include German Sünde, West Frisian sûnde, and Swedish synd, all meaning "sin," along with Gothic sunja ("truth") and Latin sons ("guilty, criminal").
**Meanings 11–12** — A modification of shin.
**Meaning 7** — From Akkadian Sîn, the name of the Mesopotamian moon god, who was also known by the Sumerian name Nanna.
**Meaning 5** — A shortening of Latin sinus, the word that also gave English sine.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/sin (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).