Fraternity

How to spell fraternity

10 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce fraternity

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does fraternity mean?

1. nounA group of people sharing a common profession, interest, or sense of kinship.
2. nounA male students' social organisation at a North American college or university, usually named with Greek letters.

Fraternity in a sentence

• The medical fraternity closed ranks after the report was published.

• He pledged a fraternity during his first semester at the university.

• Members of the racing fraternity gathered to honour the retired champion.

• The campus suspended the fraternity after the hazing complaint.

Where does fraternity come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word comes from the Latin fraternitas, meaning 'brotherhood', which was built on the adjective fraternus, 'brotherly', and ultimately on frater, the plain Latin word for 'brother'. English took it in during the 1300s by way of Old French fraternite, at first carrying the sense of a religious or trade brotherhood: a body of men bound together for a shared purpose. From there the meaning broadened to any group united by common interests or profession, as in the legal or medical fraternity. The original frater is a close cousin of the native English 'brother', since both descend from the same ancient Indo-European root for a male sibling, and it also lurks inside 'fraternise' and 'fratricide'. For spellers the trap is the unstressed middle: it sounds like 'fruh-TUR-ni-tee', yet the frater root keeps an 'a' where the ear expects a vague vowel.

How the word is built

• frater- (Latin: brother)
• -ity (noun-forming suffix denoting state or quality)