white friar
Also White Friar.
[white a. 6 a.]
1. A Carmelite friar (whose habit is distinguished by a white cloak and scapular). Also, loosely, a Premonstratensian or White Canon.
| 1412 in Laing Charters (1899) 24 Willyam Cokar, than beande prouincial of the Quite Freris of Scotlande. 1474 Caxton Chesse iii. ii. (1883) 88, I haue my self ben conuersant in a religious hous of white freris at gaunt which haue all thynge in comyn. a 1550 Lynn Chron. in Six Town Chron. (1911) 198 In this yere one william chysborow and a whyght ffryere was hanged drawen and quartered. 1603 Stow Surv. 312 The white Fryers church in Fleet⁓street. 1762 Bp. Forbes Jrnl. (1886) 170 An Abbacy of Præmonstratenses, or White Friars. 1766 [see Carmelite]. |
2. pl. The Carmelite convent in Fleet Street, London; hence, the district or neighbourhood in which it was.
‘Having been formerly a sanctuary, it long retained the privilege of protecting persons liable to arrest, and thus became the resort of debtors..and profligates’ (Nares). Hence attrib.
| 1561 J. Awdelay Frat. Vocab. (1869) 51 There came..a Counterfet Cranke vnder my lodgynge at the whyte Fryares. 1609 B. Jonson Silent Wom. Prol., Cates..fit for Ladies;..Some for your waiting wench, and city-wires; Some for your men, and daughters of White-Fryars. 1620 Melton Astrologaster 36 Some of his White-Fryer Mistresses. |
3. colloq. or dial. A flake or particle of white scum or froth floating on liquid.
| 1729 Swift Direct. Serv. i. (1745) 22 If the Cork be musty, or White Fryers in your Liquor. 1856 P. Kennedy Banks Boro xxv. 191 The white-friars came at last on the potatoes in the big pot: they then proceeded to boil. |