Fratress

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A woman in charge of the furniture in a convent.

    "On this occasion the abbess' kitchen had to provide each lady of the convent with half a goose, the two chantresses, as well as the four usual recipients, receiving doubles, and with a hen or a cock, the fratresses and the subprioress also receiving doubles."

Example

More examples

"On this occasion the abbess' kitchen had to provide each lady of the convent with half a goose, the two chantresses, as well as the four usual recipients, receiving doubles, and with a hen or a cock, the fratresses and the subprioress also receiving doubles."

Etymology

From frater + -ess. Piecewise doublet of friaress.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.