sodality

From the French sodalité or its etymon, the Latin sodālitās, from sodālis (“companion”).

• (UK) IPA^(key): /səʊˈdæl.ɪ.ti/
• (US) IPA^(key): /soʊˈdæl.ɪ.ti/

• Audio (US):

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sodality (plural sodalities)

1. A fraternity, a society or association.
   • 1963, Thomas Pynchon, V.:

     There’d even evolved somehow a kind of sodality or fan club that sat around, read from her books and discussed her Theory.

   • 1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, London: Rider/Hutchinson & Co., page 183:

     The story is a myth of origins, in this case the story of the origins of a sacred sodality of men in the city of Erech.

2. Companionship.
   • 1968, Anthony Burgess, Enderby Outside:

     Those would, he thought, be expatriate writers. He was, of course, one of those himself now, but he was indifferent to the duties and pleasures of sodality.

3. (Christianity) Spiritual communion with a divine being, a fellowship
   • 1916 December 29, James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, New York, N.Y.: B W. Huebsch, →OCLC:

     On the wall of his bedroom hung an illuminated scroll, the certificate of his prefecture in the college of the sodality of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

     Macmillan Press Ltd, p. 98

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