Date:  Wed, 21 Jun 1995 09:12:30 -0400

From:  "E. Wayles Browne" <ewb2[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CORNELL.EDU>

Subject: Re: nurse / "sister"



In Russian nurse is _medsestra_, which is an abbreviation for

_meditsinskaya sestra_ "medical sister". Same phrase in Serbo-

Croatian: medicinska sestra "medical sister", although there

is another term too, bolnic^arka [hac^ek on the c] derived from

the word bolnica "hospital". Bulgarian also has the phrase

medicinska sestra. Polish, Czech, Slovak, Ukrainian each have

their own words for nurse, but siostra (Polish) / sestra (others)

is used in addition to these.

"Sister" is also used in British English, though not in

American. Norman Moss, _British/American Language Dictionary_,

Lincolnwood, IL: Passport Books 1984, p. 150 (in the British-to-

American listing) says: sister, n - a head nurse.

_Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English_, Harlow and London:

Longman 1978, has: sister... 4...BrE (a title for) a nurse in

charge of a department (WARD) of a hospital: Sister Brown /

the night sister







Wayles Browne, Assoc. Prof. of Linguistics

Dept. of Modern Languages and Linguistics, Morrill Hall

Cornell University

Ithaca, New York 14853, U.S.A.

tel. 607-255-0712 (o), 607-273-3009 (h)

e-mail ewb2[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]cornell.edu (1989 to 1993 was: jn5j[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]cornella.bitnet //

jn5j[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]cornella.cit.cornell.edu)