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  • confrere
    confrere
    noun
    a fellow member of a fraternity, profession, etc.; colleague.
  • confrère
    confrère
    noun
    a fellow member of a profession, fraternity, etc
Synonyms

confrere

American  
[kon-frair] / ˈkɒn frɛər /

noun

  1. a fellow member of a fraternity, profession, etc.; colleague.

    my confreres in the medical profession.


confrère British  
/ ˈkɒnfrɛə /

noun

  1. a fellow member of a profession, fraternity, etc

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Etymology

Origin of confrere

1425–75; late Middle English < Middle French < Medieval Latin confrāter colleague, equivalent to Latin con- con- + frāter brother


Explanation

A confrere is not quite the same as a buddy. It's a fellow worker, a member of your professional group or an esteemed peer. Think of the noun confrere as a very French sounding way to say "colleague." In fact, frere means "brother" in French, so a confrere is like someone who's a part of your professional brotherhood. Except these days that brotherhood has been expanded to include all of the working women of the world.

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Vocabulary lists containing confrere

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:

“They have insinuated infamy on the integrity of my priestly life, having financed witnesses in a trial against a confrere, even being the owner of oil wells or tax havens.”

From Seattle Times ● Mar. 17, 2022

In the crowd were the actors Tony Danza, Tony Lo Bianco and Jelani Remy; Monty Alexander, a jazz pianist; and Deana Martin, an entertainer and daughter of the Sinatra confrere Dean Martin.

From New York Times ● Sep. 25, 2019

In Owen, Casey has found a willing confrere.

From New York Times ● Mar. 7, 2014

Mark Temple started the game with Oregon's first touchdown, passed to a confrere named Gee for the second, kicked both extra points.

From Time Magazine Archive

He bent again to his confrere and they conferred awhile.

From The Luck of the Mounted A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police by Ralph S. Kendall

Like his European confrère Karl Ove Knausgaard, Louis has turned to the novel as a way to process traumatic personal history, finding a sympathetic global audience in the process.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 11, 2022

In the middle of the last century, when Cardinal Francis Spellman was archbishop—and a confrère of J. Edgar Hoover, Joseph McCarthy, and Pope Pius XII—the residence was known as the Powerhouse.

From The New Yorker ● Apr. 8, 2019

Lanzmann himself – a fighter in the French resistance, a former lover of Simone de Beauvoir and confrère of Jean-Paul Sartre – was agitated.

From The Guardian ● Dec. 10, 2015

Deep into last spring’s campaign to elect Socialist President François Hollande, Valérie Trierweiler could still be seen greeting an old confrère with la bise, a two-cheek kiss, on the edge of a media scrum.

From Newsweek ● Sep. 17, 2012

Here the fathers of the unborn State often sat in council, moistening their dry deliberations with copious mugs of flip served by their confrère, landlord Stephen Fay.

From Vermont A Study of Independence by Rowland E. (Evans) Robinson

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