[ad. F. confraternité (14th c. in Littré) or med.L. confrāternitās: see CONFRATER and FRATERNITY.]
1. A brotherhood; an association of men united for some purpose or in some common profession; a guild; esp. a brotherhood devoted to some particular service religious or charitable.
c. 1475. Partenay, Prol. 39. He was of hys confraternite.
1601. Holland, Pliny, II. 553. Numa ordained at Rome a seuenth confraternitie of potters.
1654. H. L’Estrange, Chas. I. (1655), 110. The Lord Maior with his confraternity of Aldermen.
1688. H. Wharton, Enthus. Ch. Rome, 87. We may hope to see erected an holy Confraternity of Catholick Chimney-sweepers.
1854. Cdl. Wiseman, Fabiola, II. i. 132. Diogenes was the head and director of that confraternity.
1882. B. D. W. Ramsay, Recoll. Mil. Serv., II. xix. 196. First came military; then various confraternities of monks and friars, with lighted tapers, chanting.
b. loosely. Body, fraternity, clan.
1872. Spurgeon, Treas. Dav., Ps. lix. 5. He prays … against the entire confraternity of traitors.
1885. Miss Braddon, Wyllard’s Weird, II. 17. Unappeasable hatred … against … the whole confraternity of men-milliners.
2. Brotherly union or communion.
1680. Morden, Geog. Rect., Germany (1685), 127. By vertue of a Conferternity made between those princes in the year 1554.
1769. Robertson, Chas. V., III. XI. 331. The ancient treaty of confraternity which had long united their families.
1837. Fraser’s Mag., XVI. 415. [They] admitted the other sect to confraternity.
