confrere
"confrere" is a 8-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“confrere” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 8
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A colleague or fellow, especially a professional one.
Corpus desk
Index EN-confrere · confrere · English
confrere · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-LONG 8 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "C" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | confrere |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 8 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “confrere” in English
Rare enough to double-check
confrere is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for confrere, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, since its spelling is unusual enough that it doesn't cluster with a lookalike.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Old French confrere, from Latin confrāter. The word which was originally only used for the second sense became obsolete in the 17th century and reappeared in the mid 18th century as a re-borrowing of Modern French confrère whence the first sense is from. The correct English form is confrere, spelled C-O-N-F-R-E-R-E.
Definition
- 1A colleague or fellow, especially a professional one.
- 2A fellow member of a religious organization, referring especially to Catholic religious orders of men.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how confrere appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Unfortunately, when it comes to the informant who turns state’s evidence against a confrere, the OED slaps on the obscure origin label.
Roger Bacon had little reverence for their Franciscan confrere, Alexander of Hales...
Etymology
From Old French confrere, from Latin confrāter. The word which was originally only used for the second sense became obsolete in the 17th century and reappeared in the mid 18th century as a re-borrowing of Modern French confrère whence the first sense is from.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.