[ad. med.L. sororitas, or f. L. soror sister + -ITY, after fraternity. Cf. obs. F. sororité (Cotgr., 1611).]
1. A body or company of women united for some common object, esp. for devotional purposes; † U.S., the female section of a church congregation.
1532. More, Confut. Barnes, VIII. Wks. 761/1. This would he say for the comfort of ye whole fraternitie and sororiti in general.
1645. Pagitt, Heresiogr. (1647), 86. The Synod of New England maketh not only the fraternity but (as they speak) the sorority to be the subject of the … power of the keyes.
1657. J. Watts, Dipper Sprinkled, 101. [The care] of the fraternity and sorority within their limits.
2. U.S. A women’s society in a college or university. Also attrib.
1900. E. Insley, in Harper’s Mag., Sept., 490/1. One saw many of those neat little sorority pins the American girl proudly brings home from boarding-school or college.
1908. Grace E. Cody (title), Jacquette, a Sorority Girl.
1908. C. W. Eliot, Univ. Administr., 223. Sororities have, in general, the same merits and advantages as fraternities.
