faculty
Americannoun
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an ability, natural or acquired, for a particular kind of action.
a faculty for making friends easily.
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one of the powers of the mind, as memory, reason, or speech.
Though very sick, he is in full possession of all his faculties.
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an inherent capability of the body.
the faculties of sight and hearing.
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exceptional ability or aptitude.
a president with a faculty for management.
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Education.
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the entire teaching and administrative force of a university, college, or school.
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one of the departments of learning, as theology, medicine, or law, in a university.
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the teaching body, sometimes with the students, in any of these departments.
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the members of a learned profession.
the medical faculty.
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a power or privilege conferred by the state, a superior, etc..
The police were given the faculty to search the building.
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Ecclesiastical. a dispensation, license, or authorization.
noun
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one of the inherent powers of the mind or body, such as reason, memory, sight, or hearing
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any ability or power, whether acquired or inherent
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a conferred power or right
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a department within a university or college devoted to a particular branch of knowledge
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the staff of such a department
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all the teaching staff at a university, college, school, etc
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all members of a learned profession
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archaic occupation
Synonym Usage
See ability.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
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.
Vocabulary lists containing faculty
Make Do: Fac
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Nothing But the Truth
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Out of My Mind
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
A separate faculty committee later said it was unfeasible for UC to develop its own test in the short timeline that was needed.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 13, 2026
Now she is besieged by an array of faculty, unions and deans.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 10, 2026
Napolitano cautioned that the SAT is no cure for the preparedness gap faculty describe.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 9, 2026
UC Berkeley Chancellor Rich Lyons, whose campus math faculty are at the center of the push, declined to predict where consensus would land, but spoke to the work ahead.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 9, 2026
I got up and followed Coach over to the end of the faculty lunch table, where he gestured for me to sit across from him.
From "Here to Stay" by Sara Farizan
"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
When I released the clutch and took off, my spirit filled with joy, and any anxieties about my age or declining faculties disappeared.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 4, 2025
No adult treats any other adult that way unless they’ve lost their mental faculties or never had them.
From Salon ● Nov. 21, 2025
She now wants to do Pilates after work, and the long hours she spends working and learning legalese have kept her mental faculties in check.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 22, 2024
When Bernabe figured it was in possession of all its faculties, including that of flight, he threw it up in the air, expecting that it would take off.
From "The Milagro Beanfield War" by John Nichols
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
