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FRATER HOUSE FRATER
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FRATER, FRATER HOUSE Or FRATERY, a term in architecture for the hall where the members of a monastery or friary met for meals or refreshment. The word is by origin the same as " refectory." The older forms, such as freitur, fraytor and the like, show the word to be an adaptation of the O.Fr. fraitour, a shortened form of refraitour, from the Med. Lat. refectorium. The word has been confused with frater, a brother or friar, and hence sometimes confined in meaning to the dining-hall of a friary, while " refectory " is used of a monastery.