lay brother

American  

noun

1. a man who has taken religious vows and habit but is employed by his order chiefly in manual labor.

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lay brother British  

noun

1. a man who has taken the vows of a religious order but is not ordained and not bound to divine office

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Etymology

Origin of lay brother

First recorded in 1670–80

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

lay brother

“The most vulnerable are always an easy target, even if they are under our sanctuary,” said Jun Santiago, a lay brother of the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer and a member of Rise Up.

From New York Times ● Jun. 4, 2017

After Serenelli's release from prison, he became a lay brother in a monastery.

From Reuters ● Oct. 14, 2015

“MEETING them where they are” is a mantra among St. Boniface’s five priests and a lay brother, who make it a point to invite new faces to monthly home-cooked lunches in the rectory.

From New York Times ● Apr. 7, 2012

Detectives clapped the "clergy" of the Community Mission 'into jail, and with them a lay brother named William J. Hager.

From Time Magazine Archive

The lay brother Pedro Rodriguez spent twenty years in the hospital maintained by the Dominicans for the Chinese, which was later removed to Binondo.

From The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume 30 of 55 Explorations by early navigators, descriptions of the islands and their peoples, their history and records of the catholic missions, as related in contemporaneous books and manuscripts, showing the political, economic, commercial and religious conditions of those islands from their earliest relations with European nations to the close of the nineteenth century, Volume XXX, 1640 by Abreu, Antonio Alvarez de