in family
1 a boy or man who has the same mother and father as another person:
We're brothers. * He's my brother. * an older / younger brother * a twin brother * Does she have any brothers and sisters? * Edward was the youngest of the Kennedy brothers. * He was like a brother to me (= very close).
seealsoHALF-BROTHER, STEPBROTHER
other men
2 (plural brothers or old-fashioned brethren) used for talking to or talking about other male members of an organization or other men who have the same ideas, purpose, etc. as yourself:
We must work together, brothers! * We are all brothers in the fight against injustice. * He was greatly respected by his brother officers. * We must support our weaker brethren.
in religious group
3 (also Brother) (plural brethren or brothers) a male member of a religious group, especially a MONK:
Brother Luke * The Brethren meet regularly for prayer.
form of address
4 (AmE, informal) used by black people as a form of address for a black man
at college / university
5 (in the US) a member of a FRATERNITY (= a club for a group of male students at a college or university)
exclamation (old-fashioned, especially AmE) used to express the fact that you are annoyed or surprised:
Oh brother!
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About this entry
This is a English–English dictionary entry.
Sourced from Main Dictionary in Lughet's collection.
This word also appears under other sources in Lughet's collection — see the list below.
This entry for brother is sourced from Main Dictionary, one of the dictionaries and corpora merged into Lughet.
Is brother a noun, verb, or something else?
In this entry, brother is tagged as noun.
Does brother appear elsewhere on Lughet?
Yes — brother appears under other sources or language pairs in Lughet's collection. See the list below.
What is Lughet?
Lughet is a free trilingual dictionary covering nearly five million entries across Uyghur, Chinese, and English, drawn from more than ten source dictionaries and corpora.