Word of the Day

Sunday, April 13, 2003

confrere

\KON-frair\ , noun;

A fellow member of a fraternity or profession; a colleague; a comrade; an intimate associate.

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Quotes:

At Father Kilmartin's death the book was left unfinished (a sign of the times: not in manuscript, but on his laptop); and the arduous but also extremely delicate task of putting it into publishable condition was carried out by his Jesuit confrere, Robert J. Daly.

-- Jaroslav Pelikan, "The Eucharist as Puzzle", Commonweal, May 7, 1999

The reason for this was that our government, out of the weaknesses Kissinger himself describes, was treating that adversary as a confrere whose hideous character flaws could not be discussed.

-- Gabriel Schoenfeld, "Was Kissinger Right?", Commentary, May 1999

Baudelaire knew that this brave defense of the much derided middle class, offered without a touch of sarcasm, put him at odds with his confreres; to them, after all,"that inoffensive being" the bourgeois,"who would like nothing better than to love good painting," had long been anathema.

-- Peter Gay, Pleasure Wars

Origin:

Confrere comes from Old French, from Medieval Latin confrater, from Latin com-, "with, together" + frater, "brother."