noun

• A member of a religious community of men typically living under vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience.

  ‘He has attended several retreats at the abbey, run by the Catholic order of Benedictine monks.’

  More example sentences

  • ‘The emperor assumed the authority to make rules for the communities of Buddhist monks.’
  • ‘They were originally built for a community of monks from Val des Choux in Burgundy.’
  • ‘He declared that it was his last mathematics book, and entered the Benedictine Order as a monk.’
  • ‘He spent two years as a monk in Germany and then became secretary to a French bishop.’
  • ‘He wanted to be a monk, not a busy town parson continually beset by unreasonable people.’
  • ‘One by one the monks glided from the church, each stopping to kiss the most sacred icons as they went.’
  • ‘He then requests the ten basic vows of a novice monk and repeats each as it is recited to him.’
  • ‘As a teenager, he was set on becoming a Franciscan monk until he took high school acting lessons.’
  • ‘On the right side of the pyramid was the monastery, with its abbot and his subordinate monks.’
  • ‘He was the first Westerner to be ordained as a monk by the Dalai Lama and now teaches at Columbia University.’
  • ‘All the community of Evesham was there, every monk and lay brother eager to greet their donors.’
  • ‘He was on his way to visit his brother Raimond, who was a monk in the Dominican monastery there.’
  • ‘Priests and monks had to follow a strictly regimented set of activities every day.’
  • ‘He was nudged awake by one member of a line of Buddhist monks who were making their daily alms run.’
  • ‘My thoughts turned to the Priory, and the monks who lived in peace and poverty there.’
  • ‘The temple takes its name from the Knights Templar, an order of warrior monks.’
  • ‘When a group of Dominican monks founded a house in the rue St Jacques in Paris they became known as Jacobins.’
  • ‘Many of the alms will be donated to monks at the temple, as well as to the novices to use during their stay.’
  • ‘Both forms of ordination require a quorum of five ordained monks or nuns with a minimum of ten years in the Order.’

  Synonyms

  brother, male member of a religious order, religious, contemplative

  View synonyms

noun