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BROTHER
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
Irregular inflected form: brethren
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
A male with the same parents as someone else
Example:
my brother still lives with our parents
Synonyms:
Classified under:
Hypernyms ("brother" is a kind of...):
male sibling (a sibling who is male)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "brother"):
big brother (an older brother)
little brother (a younger brother)
half-brother; half brother; stepbrother (a brother who has only one parent in common with you)
Antonym:
sister (a female person who has the same parents as another person)
Derivation:
brotherly (like or characteristic of or befitting a brother)
Sense 2
Meaning:
(Roman Catholic Church) a title given to a monk and used as form of address
Example:
a Benedictine Brother
Classified under:
Nouns denoting people
Hypernyms ("Brother" is a kind of...):
monastic; monk (a male religious living in a cloister and devoting himself to contemplation and prayer and work)
Domain category:
Church of Rome; Roman Catholic; Roman Catholic Church; Roman Church; Western Church (the Christian Church based in the Vatican and presided over by a pope and an episcopal hierarchy)
Derivation:
brotherhood (people engaged in a particular occupation)
Sense 3
Meaning:
A male person who is a fellow member (of a fraternity or religion or other group)
Example:
none of his brothers would betray him
Classified under:
Nouns denoting people
Hypernyms ("brother" is a kind of...):
fellow member; member (one of the persons who compose a social group (especially individuals who have joined and participate in a group organization))
Domain category:
faith; religion; religious belief (a strong belief in a supernatural power or powers that control human destiny)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "brother"):
Freemason; Mason (a member of a widespread secret fraternal order pledged to mutual assistance and brotherly love)
Holonyms ("brother" is a member of...):
brotherhood; fraternity; sodality (people engaged in a particular occupation)
Sense 4
Meaning:
Used as a term of address for those male persons engaged in the same movement
Example:
Greetings, comrade!
Synonyms:
brother; comrade
Classified under:
Nouns denoting people
Hypernyms ("brother" is a kind of...):
friend (a person you know well and regard with affection and trust)
Sense 5
Meaning:
A close friend who accompanies his buddies in their activities
Synonyms:
brother; buddy; chum; crony; pal; sidekick
Classified under:
Nouns denoting people
Hypernyms ("brother" is a kind of...):
friend (a person you know well and regard with affection and trust)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "brother"):
cobber (Australian term for a pal)
Context examples:
There are plenty to love you, so try to be satisfied with Father and Mother, sisters and brothers, friends and babies, till the best lover of all comes to give you your reward.
(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)
Successful in this, the old simile of the needle in the haystack would be mild indeed compared with his brother’s chance of finding him.
(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)
Miss Bingley is to live with her brother, and keep his house; and I am much mistaken if we shall not find a very charming neighbour in her.
(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)
Woe was it that his own unworthy brother, when he had fallen, sold his people to the Turk and brought the shame of slavery on them!
(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)
As we sat at the table my back was to the window, and my brother George, he being my partner at cards, was facing it.
(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Brother Mark of the Spicarium is sore smitten with a fever and could not come.
(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Colonel of a damned dragoon regiment under the orders of my own younger brother.
(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
“I incline to Cain’s heresy,” he used to say quaintly: “I let my brother go to the devil in his own way.”
(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)
But as brother and sister often entertain a lively affection towards each other without desiring a more intimate union, may not such also be our case?
(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)
And the dwarf married the youngest and the best of the princesses, and was king after her father’s death; but his two brothers married the other two sisters.
(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)
