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 syn onymous with "refectory." The older forms, such as freitur and fraytor, show the word to be an adaptation of the O.Fr. fraitour, a shortened form of re f raitour, from the Med. Lat. re f ectorium. 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.