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

During a regents meeting last week, faculty and students spoke passionately about UC admissions, including the course requirements.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 23, 2026

In 1995, a year after co-writing a bestselling book on the habits of great companies, Jim Collins left the faculty of Stanford’s business school to found his own management lab.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 23, 2026

In 2023 and 2024, UC’s faculty admissions board reversed that ruling, finding that three of the most popular data science classes were too light on algebra to count.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 23, 2026

Nearly 80 faculty and staff formed 10 design teams and spent months soliciting ideas and suggesting ways to rework the organizational structure.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 17, 2026

Without a faculty sponsor, there's no chance of starting a club, he tells us.

From "You Bring the Distant Near" by Mitali Perkins

But it is true that, for progressive education, school begins with the child and her interests and developing faculties, not with the subject matter and its intrinsic nature.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 9, 2026

Students at Sapienza University where she works are staging sit-ins at several faculties.

From BBC ● Oct. 3, 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

The issue has torn apart the faculties at these universities.

From New York Times ● May 2, 2024

Thanks to the surreptitious prayers of the women and children, as he himself admitted, he was alive and well and in full possession of his faculties, including his sense of humor.

From "The House of the Spirits: A Novel" by Isabel Allende

Related Words

• department
• institute
• personnel
• staff
• university