faculty

From Middle English faculte (“power, property”), from Old French faculte, from Latin facultas (“capability, ability, skill, abundance, plenty, stock, goods, property, Medieval Latin also a body of teachers”), another form of facilitas (“easiness, facility, etc.”), from facul, another form of facilis (“easy, facile”); see facile.

• IPA^(key): /ˈfæ.kəl.ti/

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faculty (plural faculties)

1. The academic staff at schools, colleges or universities, as opposed to the students or support staff.
2. A division of a university.

   She transferred from the Faculty of Science to the Faculty of Medicine.

3. An ability, skill, or power, often plural.
   • 1974, Thomas S. Szasz, M.D., chapter 12, in The Myth of Mental Illness‎, →ISBN, page 201:

     I have used the notion of games so far as if it were familiar to most people. I think this is justified as everyone knows how to play some games. Accordingly, games serve admirably as models for the clarification of other, less well-understood, social-psychological phenomena. Yet the ability to follow rules, play games, and construct new games is a faculty not equally shared by all persons. […]

   He lived until he reached the age of 90 with most of his faculties intact.

4. A power, authority or privilege conferred by a higher authority.
5. (Church of England) A licence to make alterations to a church.
6. The members of a profession.

• See also Thesaurus:faculty

• facultative

• faculty in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• faculty in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.