monk

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A man who is a member of a brotherhood living in a monastery and devoted to a discipline prescribed by his order: a Carthusian monk; a Buddhist monk.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. Originally, a man who retired from the world for religious meditation and the practice of religious duties in solitude; a religious hermit; in later use, a member of a community or fraternity of men formed for the practice of religious devotions and duties, and bound by the vows of poverty, celibacy, and obedience to a superior; specifically, a regular male denizen of a monastery. Communities of a more or less monastic character in Palestine and Egypt before the diffusion of Christianity were the Essenes and Therapeutæ (which see). The ordinary Christian life of the first three centuries, even when not celibate, was largely ascetic and in communities. Christian monasticism in a definite form originated in Upper Egypt in the third or fourth century (perhaps with St. Anthony; according to other accounts it is traced to the ascetic Paul, about a. d. 250). The first monks were anchorites, living in solitude. The collection of anchorites in a monastery (laura or cœnobium) is ascribed to Pachomius, in the fourth century. The institution spread rapidly, and was greatly helped in the West by the establishment of the Benedictine order in the sixth century. Various developments of the monastic system are to be found in the middle ages, as the military orders, friars (often distinguished from monks proper), etc. Since the Reformation, and especially since the French revolution, monachism has declined in Western countries, or has been overshadowed by the society of Jesuits, but still continues to flourish in Eastern churches.
2. n. A name of various animals. The bullfinch, Pyrrhula vulgaris.
3. n. In printing, an over-inked spot or blotch in print, usually made by imperfect distribution of ink. Compare friar, 2.
4. n. Milit., a fuse for firing mines.
5. n. Synonyms Hermit, etc. See anchoret.

Wiktionary

1. n. A male member of a monastic order who has devoted his life for religious service.
2. n. in earlier usage, an eremite or hermit devoted to solitude, as opposed to a cenobite, who lived communally.
3. n. slang A male who leads an isolated life; a loner, a hermit.
4. n. slang An unmarried man who does not have sexual relationships.
5. n. slang A judge.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. A man who retires from the ordinary temporal concerns of the world, and devotes himself to religion; one of a religious community of men inhabiting a monastery, and bound by vows to a life of chastity, obedience, and poverty.
2. n. (Print.) A blotch or spot of ink on a printed page, caused by the ink not being properly distributed. It is distinguished from a friar, or white spot caused by a deficiency of ink.
3. n. A piece of tinder made of agaric, used in firing the powder hose or train of a mine.
4. n. A South American monkey (Pithecia monachus); also applied to other species, as Cebus xanthocephalus.
5. n. The European bullfinch.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. a male religious living in a cloister and devoting himself to contemplation and prayer and work
2. n. United States jazz pianist who was one of the founders of the bebop style (1917-1982)