sisterhood

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. The state or relationship of being a sister or sisters.
2. n. The quality of being sisterly.
3. n. A society, especially a religious society, of women.
4. n. Association or unification of women in a common cause.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. The state of being a sister; the relation of sisters; the office or duty of a sister.
2. n. Sisters collectively, or a society of sisters; in religious usage, an association of women who are bound by monastic vows or are otherwise devoted to religious work as a vocation. In the Roman Catholic Church the members of a sisterhood may be bound by the irrevocable vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, and are then called nuns, or may be merely under one rule and bound by revocable vows. In the Church of England and its offshoots there are also sisterhoods, the members of which either take a revocable vow of obedience to the rule of their association, or live nnder the rule of the order without vow. Among the more important of the sisterhoods are the Sisters of Charity (see charity), the School Sisters of Notre Dame, the Little Sisters of the Poor, the Sisters of the Assumption, the Congregation of Sisters of Notre Dame, the Anglican Sisterhoods of St John the Baptist, of the Holy Communion, of St. Mary, etc. The Sisters of Mercy is an order founded in 1827 in Dublin, with purposes analogous to those of the Sisters of Charity. The vows are for life. A similar sisterhood in the Church of England was founded about 1845 for assisting the poor. It consists of three orders—those who live in community actively engaged in assisting the poor, those who live in community but are engaged in devotions and other secluded occupations, and those not living in the community but assisting it as co-workers. There are also a number of somewhat similar organizations in the Episcopal Church in the United States.

Wiktionary

1. n. the state, or kinship of being sisters
2. n. the quality of being sisterly; sisterly companionship
3. n. a religious society of women

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. The state or relation of being a sister; the office or duty of a sister.
2. n. A society of sisters; a society of women united in one faith or order; sisters, collectively.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. a religious society of women who live together as sisters (especially an order of nuns)
2. n. an association or society of women who are linked together by a common religion or trade or interest
3. n. the kinship relation between a female offspring and the siblings