sb. and a. [a. F. carmélite:—L. Carmēlītēs, -a inhabitant of Carmel.]
1. A member of an order of mendicant friars (called also, from the white cloak that forms part of their dress, White Friars), who derive their origin from a colony founded on Mount Carmel by Berthold, a Calabrian, in the 12th century. Also attrib., or as adj.
The order was introduced into Europe in the 13th c., and in the 16th divided into several branches, one of which, the bare-footed Carmelites, were distinguished by the severity of their rule.
c. 1500. Dunbar, Freiris of Berwik, 25. The Jacobene freiris of the quhyt hew, The Carmeleitis and the monkis eik.
1505. Test. Ebor. (1869), IV. 239. To the Freerres Carmelites a certayne of bookes.
1648. Milton, Observ. Art Peace (1851), 572. Most grave and reverend Carmelites.
1756–7. trans. Keysler’s Trav. (1760), III. 81. The above-mentioned Carmelite church.
1766. Entick, London, IV. 281. The church of the White-friars, or Carmelites, stood on the south side of Fleet-street.
1823. Lingard, Hist. Eng., VI. 501. Pallavicino, a carmelite friar.
† 2. A variety of pear. Obs.
1704. Worlidge, Dict. Rust. et Urb., Carmelite, is a large flat Pear, one side gray, and on the other a little tinged with red…. It is ripe in March.
1755. in Johnson.
3. A fine woollen stuff, generally of a grey or other obscure color: perh. = Fr. carmeline ‘wool of the vicugna’ (a species of llama), Littré.
1828. J. T. Smith, Nollekins, I. 19. Among her dresses was one of a fashionable Carmelite, a rich purple brown.
1859. Lady’s Tour Monte Rosa, 7. Every lady … should have a dress of some light woollen material such as carmelite or alpaca.
1873. Miss Braddon, Str. & Pilgr., I. vii. 166. [She] put on her Puritan hat and sober gray carmelite gown.
