friar.
A member of a mendicant Christian order such as the Augustinians, Carmelites (white friars), Franciscans (grey friars) or the Dominicans (black friars).
Meaning & usage
A member of a mendicant Christian order such as the Augustinians, Carmelites (white friars), Franciscans (grey friars) or the Dominicans (black friars).
A white or pale patch on a printed page caused by poor inking.
An American fish, the silverside.
An American fish, the silverside. Such fish prepared as food.
Where this word comes from
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *bʰréh₂tēr Proto-Italic *frātēr Latin frāter Old French frerebor. Middle English frere English friar Inherited from Middle English frere, borrowed from Old French frere, from Latin frāter, from Proto-Italic *frātēr, from Proto-Indo-European *bʰréh₂tēr. Doublet of bhai, brother, bru, frater, pal, and vai.
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.