sisters

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of sister.

   Both sisters inherited equal shares of the family farm.

   The convent welcomed four new sisters that spring.

   Note

   One regular plural serves every kind of sister: siblings, the women of a religious order, senior nurses in British hospitals, and butterflies of the genus Adelpha, named for wings as dark as a nun's habit. The slang use for Black women, sometimes capitalized, takes it too. The same letters spell the carpenter's verb (she sisters the beam), so only the sentence tells you which word you are reading.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present indicative of sister.

   The carpenter sisters the sagging rafter with a fresh length of lumber.

   Whenever a board splits, she sisters it rather than tearing out the whole frame.

   Note

   Here the word belongs to the building trade. A carpenter sisters a cracked joist by fastening a new length of timber alongside it instead of replacing it. The verb always takes an object, which is the beam being reinforced. An older meaning, to be sister to something or resemble it closely, is obsolete, so keep it to historical writing. For the spelling it shares, see the plural noun.

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