having to do with the Masons (also called the Freemasons): a class of skilled workers in stone, in the fourteenth and following centuries, who traveled from place to place, finding employment wherever important buildings were being erected. The Masons had a system of secret signs and passwords by which a craftsman who had been admitted on giving evidence of competent skill could b e recognized. Early in the seventeenth century the societies of Freemasons began to admit honorary members, not connected with the building trades. These were called accepted masons, though the term free masons was often loosely applied to them. They are now known as the "Free and Accepted Masons" and have the object of mutual assistance and the promotion of brotherly love. —Perception of Truth Approved Glossary (9 June 92)