1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Frater

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.