Word of the Day for Wednesday December 21, 2005 confrere \KON-frair\, noun: A fellow member of a fraternity or profession; a colleague; a comrade; an intimate associate. 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," [1]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?" [2]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, [3]Pleasure Wars _________________________________________________________ Confrere comes from Old French, from Medieval Latin confrater, from Latin com-, "with, together" + frater, "brother." References 1. http://www.commonwealmagazine.org/ 2. http://www.commentarymagazine.com/ 3. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0393318273/ref%3Dnosim/lexico Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation http://dictionary.reference.com/search?r=9&q=confrere