v. [ad. F. fraterniser, ad. med.L. frāterniz-āre, f. frāternus, f. frāter brother: see -IZE.]
1. intr. To associate or sympathize with as a brother or as brothers; to form a fraternal friendship.
1611. Cotgr., Fraterniser, to fraternize, concurre with, be neere vnto, agree as brothers.
1807. Sir R. Wilson, Jrnl., 1 July in Life (1862), II. viii. 290. Had Alexander not fraternized with Buonaparte this change at the Porte would have been most advantageous to the common welfare; since peace with Russia and England would then have been certain.
1816. Scott, Antiq., v. Too little of a democrat to fraternize with an affiliated society of the soi-disant Friends of the People.
1872. Baker, Nile Tribut., viii. 120. We fraternised upon the spot, and I looked forward with intense pleasure to the day when we might become allies in action.
2. trans. To bring into fraternal association or sympathy; to unite as brothers. Now rare.
1656–81. in Blount, Glossogr.
1793. Burke, Conduct of Minority, § 7. A regular correspondence for fraternizing the two nations had also been carried on by societies in London with a great number of the jacobin societies in France.
1794. Coleridge, Relig. Musings, vii.
| ’Tis the sublime of man, | |
| Our noontide majesty, to know ourselves | |
| Parts and proportions of one wondrous whole! | |
| This fraternizes man, this constitutes | |
| Our charities and bearings. |
1841. Tait’s Mag., VIII. May, 326/2. Emissaries were soon sent to the West Indies to fraternize the sable citizens of all the French islands: partial revolts arose in almost every settlement.
1856. Mrs. Browning, Aur. Leigh, I. 2.
| If her kiss | |
| Had left a longer weight upon my lips | |
| It might have steadied the uneasy breath, | |
| And reconciled and fraternized my soul | |
| With the new order. |
Hence Fraternized ppl. a., Fraternizing vbl. sb. and ppl. a. Also Fraternizer, one who or that which fraternizes.
1793. Trial of Fyshe Palmer, 46. Had these fraternizing principles been only heard in France, we might have cared the less, but here, in this country, societies were formed who were ambitious of this connexion.
1795. Burke, Regic. Peace, iv. Wks. IX. 74. I join issue with the Fraternizers, and positively deny the fact.
1817. Ann. Reg., 27. Declared the illegality of all societies bound together by secret oaths, or if not by secret oaths, which extended themselves by fraternized branches over the kingdom.
1837. De Quincey, in Tait’s Mag., IV. Feb., 72/1. The society of Liverpool wits, on whom my retrospect is now glancing, were all Whigs—all, indeed, fraternisers with French republicanism.
1858. Hogg, Life of Shelley, II. 463. Partly through the love of equality, of levelling, and fraternising.
1860. O. W. Holmes, Prof. Breakf-t., ii. The grand equalizer and fraternizer [wine], which works up the radiators to their maximum radiation, and the absorbents to their maximum receptivity.
1880. H. James, Portr. Lady, v. A gentle, refined, fastidious old man, who combined consummate shrewdness with a sort of fraternising good-humour.
