Crossword Dictionary

What's The Definition Of Faculty?

\Fac"ul*ty\, n.; pl. {Faculties}. [F. facult?, L. facultas, fr. facilis easy (cf. facul easily), fr. fecere to make. See {Fact}, and cf. {Facility}.] 1. Ability to act or perform, whether inborn or cultivated; capacity for any natural function; especially, an original mental power or capacity for any of the well-known classes of mental activity; psychical or soul capacity; capacity for any of the leading kinds of soul activity, as knowledge, feeling, volition; intellectual endowment or gift; power; as, faculties of the mind or the soul. But know that in the soul Are many lesser faculties that serve Reason as chief. --Milton. What a piece of work is a man ! how noble in reason ! how infinite in faculty ! --Shak. 2. Special mental endowment; characteristic knack. He had a ready faculty, indeed, of escaping from any topic that agitated his too sensitive and nervous temperament. --Hawthorne. 3. Power; prerogative or attribute of office. [R.] This Duncan Hath borne his faculties so meek. --Shak. 4. Privilege or permission, granted by favor or indulgence, to do a particular thing; authority; license; dispensation. The pope . . . granted him a faculty to set him free from his promise. --Fuller. It had not only faculty to inspect all bishops' dioceses, but to change what laws and statutes they should think fit to alter among the colleges. --Evelyn. 5. A body of a men to whom any specific right or privilege is granted; formerly, the graduates in any of the four departments of a university or college (Philosophy, Law, Medicine, or Theology), to whom was granted the right of teaching (profitendi or docendi) in the department in which they had studied; at present, the members of a profession itself; as, the medical faculty; the legal faculty, ect. 6. (Amer. Colleges) The body of person to whom are intrusted the government and instruction of a college or university, or of one of its departments; the president, professors, and tutors in a college. {Dean of faculty}. See under {Dean}. {Faculty of advocates}. (Scot.) See under {Advocate}. Syn: Talent; gift; endowment; dexterity; expertness; cleverness; readiness; ability; knack.