BROTHERHOOD

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does brotherhood mean? 

• BROTHERHOOD (noun)
  The noun BROTHERHOOD has 4 senses:

1. the kinship relation between a male offspring and the siblings

2. people engaged in a particular occupation

3. the feeling that men should treat one another like brothers

4. an organization of employees formed to bargain with the employer

  Familiarity information: BROTHERHOOD used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• BROTHERHOOD (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The kinship relation between a male offspring and the siblings

Classified under:

Nouns denoting relations between people or things or ideas

Hypernyms ("brotherhood" is a kind of...):

family relationship; kinship; relationship ((anthropology) relatedness or connection by blood or marriage or adoption)

Sense 2

Meaning:

People engaged in a particular occupation

Classified under:

Nouns denoting groupings of people or objects

Synonyms:

brotherhood; fraternity; sodality

Context example:

the medical fraternity

Hypernyms ("brotherhood" is a kind of...):

class; social class; socio-economic class; stratum (people having the same social, economic, or educational status)

Meronyms (members of "brotherhood"):

brother (a male person who is a fellow member (of a fraternity or religion or other group))

sodalist (a member of a sodality)

Derivation:

Brother ((Roman Catholic Church) a title given to a monk and used as form of address)

Sense 3

Meaning:

The feeling that men should treat one another like brothers

Classified under:

Nouns denoting feelings and emotions

Hypernyms ("brotherhood" is a kind of...):

friendliness (a feeling of liking for another person; enjoyment in their company)

Sense 4

Meaning:

An organization of employees formed to bargain with the employer

Classified under:

Nouns denoting groupings of people or objects

Synonyms:

brotherhood; labor union; trade union; trades union; union

Context example:

you have to join the union in order to get a job

Hypernyms ("brotherhood" is a kind of...):

organisation; organization (a group of people who work together)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "brotherhood"):

industrial union; vertical union (a labor union that admits all workers in a given industry irrespective of their craft)

craft union (a labor union whose membership is restricted to workers in a particular craft)

company union (a union of workers for a single company; a union not affiliated with a larger union)

I.W.W.; Industrial Workers of the World; IWW (a former international labor union and radical labor movement in the United States; founded in Chicago in 1905 and dedicated to the overthrow of capitalism; its membership declined after World War I)

Holonyms ("brotherhood" is a part of...):

labor; labor movement; trade union movement (an organized attempt by workers to improve their status by united action (particularly via labor unions) or the leaders of this movement)

 Context examples 

But my choice and constant companions should be a set of my own immortal brotherhood; among whom, I would elect a dozen from the most ancient, down to my own contemporaries.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

The oaths and secrets of this brotherhood were frightful, but once within its rule no escape was possible.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

While Laurie listlessly watched the procession of priests under their canopies, white-veiled nuns bearing lighted tapers, and some brotherhood in blue chanting as they walked, Amy watched him, and felt a new sort of shyness steal over her, for he was changed, and she could not find the merry-faced boy she left in the moody-looking man beside her.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

True that his gentle and thoughtful nature recoiled from the grim work of war, yet in those days of martial orders and militant brotherhoods there was no gulf fixed betwixt the priest and the soldier.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

He was a man of great size, clad in black armor without blazonry or ornament of any kind, for all worldly display was forbidden by the rules of the military brotherhood to which he belonged.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)