A convent or religious house where nuns live and worship; a community of women dedicated to religious life. A place of female monastic residence.
From Middle English 'nunnerie' combining 'nun' (from Late Latin 'nonna') and the suffix '-ery' (place of). The word emerged in the 13th century as Christian monasticism became more organized, with distinct terms for male (monastery) and female (nunnery) religious communities.
Shakespeare immortalized the word in Hamlet's cruel suggestion to Ophelia to 'get thee to a nunnery,' using it both in its literal sense and as Elizabethan slang for a brothel - a bitter pun reflecting the play's themes of purity versus corruption. Medieval nunneries were often the only places where women could receive education and wield authority, making them unexpected centers of female empowerment.
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