sorores

Sorores is a Latin noun meaning sisters. It is the nominative plural form of soror, the word for a female sibling, and is used in classical Latin to refer to sisters within a family or to groups described as sisters. The form appears across a range of contexts, from ordinary familial reference to collective designations in religious or social settings.

Etymology and linguistic context: Soror is the ancestor of several terms in European languages that express sisterhood, including the English word sorority, which derives from Latin soror via French sororité. In Latin grammar, sorores declines regularly, with related forms such as sororum (genitive), sororibus (dative and ablative), and sorores (accusative), depending on the syntactic role in a sentence. The plural sorores can function as a subject or object in Latin clauses.

Usage in ecclesiastical and scholarly contexts: In ecclesiastical Latin, sorores commonly designates nuns or women associated with a religious order, often translated in English as “the sisters.” In historical and textual studies, the term is encountered when translating Latin passages that refer to female siblings or to communities of women who live together under a religious or communal vocation. Beyond Latin itself, sorores informs discussions about the antiquity and development of terms for sisterhood and the cultural concept of female communal life.