What is a four letter word for a tibetan monk?
Probably the constructor of the crossword is just misinformed and has the word “lama” in mind, but actually that’s wrong. Many monks are lamas, but there are also many monks that are not lamas and many lamas that are not monks. Tibetan monks can be one of three kinds, rabjung (postulant), getsul (novice) and gelong (fully ordained monk), none of them of course words of four letters. Lama, on the other hand, is the Tibetan word for “guru”, i e a qualified spiritual teacher. It’s far from enough to be even a fully ordained monk in order to qualify for the title of lama. Most of the lamas are monks, but there are also quite a lot of lamas that are either married and live a family life outside the monasteries, or live secluded lives in for example caves or solitary huts. Edit: how common this misunderstanding is, you can see if you follow the link to the dictionary in an answer above, as well as many other online dictionaries. Wikipedia, linked to in the other answer above, on the other ha
