Crossword Dictionary

What's The Definition Of College?

\Col"lege\, n. [F. coll[`e]ge, L. collegium, fr. collega colleague. See {Colleague}.] 1. A collection, body, or society of persons engaged in common pursuits, or having common duties and interests, and sometimes, by charter, peculiar rights and privileges; as, a college of heralds; a college of electors; a college of bishops. The college of the cardinals. --Shak. Then they made colleges of sufferers; persons who, to secure their inheritance in the world to come, did cut off all their portion in this. --Jer. Taylor. 2. A society of scholars or friends of learning, incorporated for study or instruction, esp. in the higher branches of knowledge; as, the colleges of Oxford and Cambridge Universities, and many American colleges. Note: In France and some other parts of continental Europe, college is used to include schools occupied with rudimentary studies, and receiving children as pupils. 3. A building, or number of buildings, used by a college. ``The gate of Trinity College.'' --Macaulay. 4. Fig.: A community. [R.] Thick as the college of the bees in May. --Dryden. {College of justice}, a term applied in Scotland to the supreme civil courts and their principal officers. {The sacred college}, the college or cardinals at Rome.