confraternity
Americannoun
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confraternities
plural
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a lay brotherhood devoted to some purpose, especially to religious or charitable service.
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a society or organization, especially of men, united for some purpose or in some profession.
noun
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of confraternity
1425–75; late Middle English confraternite < Medieval Latin confrāternitās, derivative of confrāter ( see confrere), on the model of Latin frāternitās fraternity
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
The subject was popular among artists during the Renaissance, and Carpaccio told the overwrought story in a sequence of nine large canvases designed for a confraternity building known as the Scuola di Sant Orsola.
From Washington Post ● Dec. 9, 2022
A friend of his was robbed by a confraternity member resulting in a feud.
From BBC ● Jun. 1, 2020
The next year he returned to sculpting from life — which got him thrown out of the Surrealist confraternity, which was outraged that he would not draw strictly from his unconscious.
From New York Times ● Jun. 7, 2018
A confraternity of ruddy-faced, brush-cut older men—wine lovers from Chinon, with scarlet robes and medals dangling from their necks—made their way through the crush.
From The New Yorker ● Apr. 4, 2016
It is a testament to our confraternity, however, that a curious ground of agreement was eventually reached: the necessity of concealing all mourning at the smallpox burials, and displaying only dancing and festival triumph.
From "The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume II: The Kingdom on the Waves" by M.T. Anderson
Starting in the 14th century, two Christian confraternities — associations of laypeople — became affiliated with the Colosseum and began putting on representations of the Passion of Christ.
From New York Times ● Jun. 12, 2022
Ms. Rinaldi, the archaeologist, said it was possible that one of the confraternities also commissioned the painting.
From New York Times ● Jun. 12, 2022
He described the present confraternities as "vile, evil groups".
From BBC ● Jun. 1, 2020
Traipsing across Venice in search of Tintoretto clarified how thoroughly a Christian faith animated the formal invention of his greatest paintings, which I often found in obscure churches and cash-poor confraternities.
From New York Times ● Nov. 15, 2018
Still less were they debarred thereby the mere oriental customs of imparting moral instruction in secret associations, or the pursuit of science in hidden confraternities.
From Mysticism and its Results Being an Inquiry into the Uses and Abuses of Secrecy by John Delafield
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
