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
• profaculty
  adjective
• underfaculty
  noun

Inflected Forms

noun

• 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

Faculty have a responsibility to penalize or report those who cheat.

From The Wall Street Journal • May 25, 2026

Faculty were instructed to “exercise flexibility and good judgment” as the university worked through the disruption.

From Salon • May 9, 2026

But Alexandra Căpitănescu, a Master's student at the Faculty of Physics in Bucharest, says campaigners have got it all wrong.

From BBC • May 8, 2026

Professor Yoshitaka Nagai, a neurologist and Chair of the Department of Neurology at Kindai University Faculty of Medicine in Osaka, focuses his research on neurodegenerative diseases including Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

From Science Daily • May 4, 2026

Faculty members were understandably troubled, though most seemed unwilling to make their concern public.

From "Hunger of Memory" by Richard Rodriguez

Related Words

• department
• institute
• personnel
• staff
• university