faculty
- an ability, natural or acquired, for a particular kind of action: a faculty for making friends easily.
- one of the powers of the mind, as memory, reason, or speech: Though very sick, he is in full possession of all his faculties.
- an inherent capability of the body: the faculties of sight and hearing.
- exceptional ability or aptitude: a president with a faculty for management.
- Education.
- the entire teaching and administrative force of a university, college, or school.
- one of the departments of learning, as theology, medicine, or law, in a university.
- the teaching body, sometimes with the students, in any of these departments.
- the members of a learned profession: the medical faculty.
- a power or privilege conferred by the state, a superior, etc.: The police were given the faculty to search the building.
- Ecclesiastical. a dispensation, license, or authorization.
Origin of faculty
Synonyms for faculty
See more synonyms for on Thesaurus.comSynonym study
Related Words for faculty
institute, department, university, personnel, staff, dexterity, bent, adroitness, facility, intelligence, peculiarity, aptitude, sense, cleverness, quality, strength, capacity, genius, propensity, pistolExamples from the Web for faculty
Contemporary Examples of faculty
All students and faculty in the UT community should support the cause of fairness in admissions.
Is it the faculty of reason, or perhaps, the faculty for discourse?
Second, the Charles Koch Foundation would at least partially control which faculty members Florida State University hired.
Koch Foundation to College: We’ll Give You Millions—if You Teach Our Libertarian IdeologyCenter for Public Integrity
September 12, 2014
The chairperson at Doe's disciplinary was faculty member Dennis Conway.
Calvin faculty have shaped Christian discourse in important ways since its founding in 1876.
Historical Examples of faculty
Miss Hilton, a member of the Overton faculty, would chaperon her.
Grace Harlowe's Return to Overton CampusJessie Graham Flower
Hold your tongue, simpleton; it is not for you to control the decrees of the faculty.
The Imaginary InvalidMolire
Why resist, and refuse the glory of belonging to the faculty?
The Imaginary InvalidMolire
The faculty that distinguishes a weak animal or person from a strong one.
The Devil's DictionaryAmbrose Bierce
It is only to give the name of man's faculty to that power after which and by which it was fashioned.
A Dish Of OrtsGeorge MacDonald
faculty
- one of the inherent powers of the mind or body, such as reason, memory, sight, or hearing
- any ability or power, whether acquired or inherent
- a conferred power or right
- a department within a university or college devoted to a particular branch of knowledge
- the staff of such a department
- mainly US and Canadianall the teaching staff at a university, college, school, etc
- all members of a learned profession
- archaic occupation
Word Origin for faculty
Word Origin and History for faculty
late 14c., "ability, means, resources," from Old French faculté (14c.) "skill, accomplishment, learning," and directly from Latin facultatem (nominative facultas) "power, ability, wealth," from *facli-tat-s, from facilis (see facile).
Academic sense "branch of knowledge" probably was the earliest in English (attested in Anglo-Latin from late 12c.), on notion of "ability in knowledge." Originally each department was a faculty; the use in reference to the whole teaching staff of a college dates from 1767.
faculty
(făk′əl-tē)- A natural or specialized power of a living organism.