Other forms: sins, sinned, sinning
A sin is an act that breaks a religious law. Commit a sin, forgive our sins, a mortal sin.
Catholic teaching divides sin into mortal and venial by gravity and intent, and the seven deadly sins are a medieval list of the dispositions behind them rather than acts. Loosely it means any shameful waste — a sin to throw it away. Note sinful, sinner; and that the word is Old English and older than the Christian use of it.
1nounsinAn act that breaks a religious law.
“He believed that lying was a sin and always told the truth.”
2verbbreakTo break a religious law.
“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
sin is a moral wrong.
Old English synn comes from a Germanic root also connected with guilt and truth. The word is older in English than its Christian sense.
Proto-Indo-European
*h₁es-
Proto-Indo-European
<nowiki>*</nowiki>h₁s-ónt-ih₂
Proto-Germanic
*sunjō — truth, excuse
Proto-West Germanic
*sunnju
Old English
synn — sin
Middle English
sinne
English, today
sin
Built from
From Middle English sinne, synne, sunne, zen, from Old English synn (“sin”), from Proto-West Germanic sunnju, from Proto-Germanic sunjō (“truth, excuse”) and sundī, sundijō (“sin”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₁s-ónt-ih₂, from h₁sónts "being, true", implying a verdict of "truly guilty" against an accusation or charge, from h₁es- (“to be”); compare Old English soþ "true"; see sooth. a doublet of suttee. 2 Cognate with stq Sände, Säände (“sin”), West Frisian sûnde (“sin”), German Sünde (“sin”), lb Sënd, Sënn (“sin”), wym zynd (“sin”) Yiddish זינד (“sin”), Danish -, Faroese -, Icelandic -, Norwegian Bokmål -, Norwegian Nynorsk - and Swedish synd (“sin”), Gothic 𐍃𐌿𐌽𐌾𐌰 (“truth”), Latin sons, sons (“sinful, guilty, criminal”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA