The Collaborative International Dictionary
Confraternity \Con`fra*ter"ni*ty\, n.; pl. Confraternities. [LL. confraternitas: cf. F. confraternit['e]. See Fraternity.] A society or body of men united for some purpose, or in some profession; a brotherhood.
These live in one society and confraternity.
--Stow.
[1913 Webster] ||
Wiktionary
n. (plural of confraternity English)
Usage examples of "confraternities".
I can tell you that membership of confraternities in the Army is almost exclusively drawn from commissioned officer ranks.
For centuries these confraternities of gondoliers who presided over the ferries, or traghetti, of Venice had been corporations, self-governing, with officers and endowments recognized by the Republic, and with a standard of gondolier morals admirably defined in their codes--those "Mariegole" which were luxuriously bound and printed, with capitals of vermilion, a page here and there glowing like an illuminated missal with the legend of the patron saint of the traghetto, wherein one might read such admonitions as would make all men wiser.
Recently, for bad conduct, the gondoliers had been gradually forfeiting their licenses, or "liberties," as they were called in Venice, and the thought crossed the young fellow's mind that this splendid stranger was possibly one of those government officials who were charged with the supervision of the confraternities of the traghetti.
After their persecution then, many knights of the Temple must have joined those artisan confraternities, fusing the myth of avenging Hiram with the determination to avenge Jacques de Molay.
Priesthoods and confraternities for the upkeep of shrines have been hereditary for generations out of mind on the other side of the ocean but there was no such tradition here.
All the confraternities of the town, members of all the religious orders, seemed to have united for the event.