or FRIER, by the Latins called frater, the Italians frà, and the French frère, that is, brother: a term common to the monks of all orders; founded on this, that there is a kind of fraternity or brotherhood professed between the several religious persons of the same convent or monastery.

Friars are generally distinguished into these four principal branches, viz. 1. Minors, Gray friars, or Franciscans. 2. Augustines. 3. Dominicans, or Black friars. 4. White friars or Carmelites. From these four the rest of the orders descend. See FRANCISCANS, AUGUSTINES, &c.

a more peculiar sense, is restrained to such monks as are not priests; for those in orders are usually dignified with the appellation of father.

FRIARS Observant (fratres observantes), were a branch of the Franciscans; thus called, because not combined together in any cloister convent, or corporation, as the conventional are; but only agreed among themselves to observe the rules of their order, and that more strictly than the conventional did, from whom they separated themselves out of a singularity of zeal, living in certain places of their own choosing.