faculty

American  

[fak-uhl-tee] / ˈfæk əl ti /

noun

• faculties
  plural

1. an ability, natural or acquired, for a particular kind of action.

   a faculty for making friends easily.

   Synonyms:

   skill, potential, knack, aptitude, capacity

2. one of the powers of the mind, as memory, reason, or speech.

   Though very sick, he is in full possession of all his faculties.

3. an inherent capability of the body.

   the faculties of sight and hearing.

4. exceptional ability or aptitude.

   a president with a faculty for management.

5. Education.

   1. the entire teaching and administrative force of a university, college, or school.

   2. one of the departments of learning, as theology, medicine, or law, in a university.

   3. the teaching body, sometimes with the students, in any of these departments.

6. the members of a learned profession.

   the medical faculty.

7. a power or privilege conferred by the state, a superior, etc..

   The police were given the faculty to search the building.

8. Ecclesiastical. a dispensation, license, or authorization.

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faculty British  

/ ˈfækəltɪ /

noun

1. one of the inherent powers of the mind or body, such as reason, memory, sight, or hearing

2. any ability or power, whether acquired or inherent

3. a conferred power or right

4. 1. a department within a university or college devoted to a particular branch of knowledge

   2. the staff of such a department

   3. all the teaching staff at a university, college, school, etc

5. all members of a learned profession

6. archaic occupation

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Synonym Usage

See ability.

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• interfaculty
  noun
• underfaculty
  noun
• profaculty
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• faculties
  plural

Etymology

Origin of faculty

1350–1400; Middle English faculte < Anglo-French, Middle French < Latin facultāt- (stem of facultās ) ability, power, equivalent to facil ( is ) easy ( see facile) + -tāt- -ty ²; cf. facility

Explanation

A faculty refers to any of your mental or physical abilities. If you lose your faculties, you are powerless. The faculty of a school is comprised of the people who work there. Lose them, and you have a different kind of problem. Faculty comes from the Old French word faculté, which means “skill, accomplishment, or learning.” You may have great faculties of memory, sight, mobility, charm, math, and musicality, but, as Beethoven was in the end, be robbed of your faculty of hearing. Any aptitude or ability — inborn or learned — that you have is a faculty. Also, if you go to school, your teachers make up the faculty of that school.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

faculty faculties

The proposed standard would still require full-time faculty to teach more than half of all credit hours offered by a law school or two-thirds of what law schools call “student contact hours.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 13, 2026

"Every biological phenomenon occurs in the physical world -- in space and time -- and involves changes in shape, quantity and matter," said Yarahmadian, a faculty member in MSU's Department of Mathematics and Statistics.

From Science Daily ● Oct. 11, 2026

Thousands of students and faculty members rallied Monday at Cornell to demand justice for the accuser, displaying signs reading "Hold them accountable" and "Protect survivors."

From Barron's ● Oct. 6, 2026

The university was also offering support and counseling services to faculty and staff.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 6, 2026

At the end of the school year, Mott left the faculty to move to a farm in Maryland with her husband to raise chickens, and Volpe applied to be assistant drama director.

From "Drama High" by Michael Sokolove

The ABA had told schools to show “concrete” efforts toward diversity and inclusion in their student bodies and faculties.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 28, 2026

In the closing days of the war, close allies questioned his mental faculties.

From Barron's ● Aug. 27, 2026

"We're getting close to threatening the root of what makes us human, in terms of social interaction, critical thinking faculties, and developing the skills to operate in the modern world," he explains.

From BBC ● Jan. 24, 2026

No adult treats any other adult that way unless they’ve lost their mental faculties or never had them.

From Salon ● Nov. 21, 2025

"Within four days of running out of food, he'll barely be able to stand up, let alone control a rover. Plus, his mental faculties will rapidly decline. He'd have a hard time even staying awake."

From "The Martian" by Andy Weir

Related Words

• department
• institute
• personnel
• staff
• university