fraternity

American  

[fruh-tur-ni-tee] / frəˈtɜr nɪ ti /

noun

• fraternities
  plural

1. a local or national organization of male students, primarily for social purposes, usually with secret initiation and rites and a name composed of two or three Greek letters.

2. a group of persons associated by or as if by ties of brotherhood.

3. any group or class of persons having common purposes, interests, etc..

   the medical fraternity.

4. an organization of laymen for religious or charitable purposes; sodality.

5. the quality of being brotherly; brotherhood.

   liberty, equality, and fraternity.

6. the relation of a brother or between brothers.

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fraternity British  

/ frəˈtɜːnɪtɪ /

noun

1. Gender-neutral form: community.  a body of people united in interests, aims, etc

   the teaching fraternity

2. brotherhood

3. a secret society joined by male students, usually functioning as a social club

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• nonfraternity
  noun
• interfraternity
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• fraternities
  plural

Etymology

Origin of fraternity

1300–50; Middle English fraternite < Latin frāternitās. See fraternal, -ity

Explanation

A fraternity is a group of people who work in the same industry or have similar careers. Your dad's fraternity of firefighters holds lots of charity events and get-togethers. Most often, a fraternity is a social club or group made up of men, but it can refer to any organization of people with something in common. At a college or university, a fraternity is a club for men that's by invitation only. Members of these frats, as they are called, often live together in one house and socialize primarily with each other. Fraternity comes from the Latin word fraternitas, meaning "brotherhood."

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

fraternity fraternities

As Kent walked around Otesaga Resort, he could feel the warmth and welcome from the most exclusive fraternity in baseball.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 25, 2026

Extracurriculars that “highlight team leadership, whether it’s in a sorority or fraternity, or the newspaper, certainly help us see that those individuals are motivated and are more likely to succeed,” she said.

From MarketWatch ● Jun. 18, 2026

The pre-fight feeling was that this occasion bordered on the absurd as a sanctioned world title contest, but Verhoeven went a long way to proving the boxing fraternity wrong.

From BBC ● May 23, 2026

"Whilst he may no longer be able to say he's run all the London Marathons, he will always be part of that fraternity as one of the original 42," he says.

From BBC ● May 3, 2026

British soldiers would recall these schoolboy recruits advancing arm in arm, wearing their fraternity caps, carrying flowers, and singing as they came.

From "The War to End All Wars: World War I" by Russell Freedman

Gipson said Washington was a member of Alpha Phi Alpha, one of the oldest African American fraternities in the U.S., according to its website.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 7, 2026

Both Kalshi and Polymarket have flooded social media with ads and courted college fraternities and groups.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 6, 2026

The publication was founded in 1955 by the legendary gadfly William F. Buckley Jr. as a salon for the various right-leaning fraternities in American life: fire-eating libertarians, orthodox Catholics, conspiratorial anti-communists.

From Slate ● Apr. 25, 2025

Members of Black sororities and fraternities are no strangers to political engagement either, having built practices of civic engagement around addressing community-specific inequities.

From Salon ● Aug. 23, 2024

My sister spent the next ten minutes denouncing the Greek system of sororities and fraternities.

From "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" by Stephen Chbosky

Related Words

• camaraderie
• guild
• sorority