Brotherhood

How to spell brotherhood

11 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce brotherhood

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does brotherhood mean?

1. nounA feeling of close kinship, loyalty, and fellowship between people.
2. nounAn organised society, union, or order whose members are bound by a common interest or trade.

Brotherhood in a sentence

• Years of working side by side created a strong sense of brotherhood among the firefighters.

• His grandfather paid dues to the railway workers' brotherhood for forty years.

• The charity promotes brotherhood and mutual support across different communities.

• The monastic brotherhood welcomed travellers who needed shelter for the night.

Where does brotherhood come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a thoroughly native English word, built from two Old English parts. The first is brōþor, the everyday word for a male sibling, which itself reaches back to a very ancient Indo-European root for 'brother' shared by Latin frater and Sanskrit bhratar. The second part, the suffix -hood, descends from the Old English noun hād, which meant 'state, rank, condition, or quality', the same element that ends words like childhood, neighbourhood, and priesthood. By the early Middle English period the two had fused into broþerhede, naming first the natural bond between brothers and later, by extension, any association of people united like brothers, such as a guild, trade union, or religious order. The spelling is mostly transparent once you remember it is simply 'brother' joined to 'hood', so the only thing to watch is the silent shift of stress that hides the second 'o' in the suffix.

How the word is built

• brother (male sibling)
• -hood (state, condition, or group)