Faculty

5 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  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.
        [1913 Webster]
  
              But know that in the soul
              Are many lesser faculties that serve
              Reason as chief.                      --Milton.
        [1913 Webster]
  
              What a piece of work is a man ! how noble in reason
              ! how infinite in faculty !           --Shak.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     2. Special mental endowment; characteristic knack.
        [1913 Webster]
  
              He had a ready faculty, indeed, of escaping from any
              topic that agitated his too sensitive and nervous
              temperament.                          --Hawthorne.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     3. Power; prerogative or attribute of office. [R.]
        [1913 Webster]
  
              This Duncan
              Hath borne his faculties so meek.     --Shak.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     4. Privilege or permission, granted by favor or indulgence,
        to do a particular thing; authority; license;
        dispensation.
        [1913 Webster]
  
              The pope . . . granted him a faculty to set him free
              from his promise.                     --Fuller.
        [1913 Webster]
  
              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.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     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, etc.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     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.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     {Dean of faculty}. See under {Dean}.
  
     {Faculty of advocates}. (Scot.) See under {Advocate}.
  
     Syn: Talent; gift; endowment; dexterity; expertness;
          cleverness; readiness; ability; knack.
          [1913 Webster]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  faculty
       n 1: one of the inherent cognitive or perceptual powers of the
            mind [syn: {mental faculty}, {module}]
       2: the body of teachers and administrators at a school; "the
          dean addressed the letter to the entire staff of the
          university" [syn: {staff}]

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

  124 Moby Thesaurus words for "faculty":
     ability, ableness, absolute power, absolutism, adequacy,
     adroitness, appurtenance, aptitude, aptness, authority,
     authorization, bent, birthright, bump, caliber, capability,
     capableness, capacity, claim, cleverness, competence, competency,
     conjugal right, consciousness, constituted authority,
     delegated authority, demand, department, dexterity, discipline,
     dispensation, divine right, dower, dowry, droit, due, efficacy,
     efficiency, endowment, equipment, facility, faculties, fitness,
     flair, forte, function, genius, gift, inalienable right,
     indirect authority, inherent authority, instinct,
     intellectual gifts, intellectuals, interest, jus divinum, knack,
     lawful authority, leaning, legal authority, legitimacy, liberty,
     long suit, makings, members, metier, natural endowment,
     natural gift, natural right, nose, parts, penchant, permission,
     personnel, potential, power, powers, predilection, prerogative,
     prescription, presumptive right, pretense, pretension, privilege,
     proclivity, professorate, professordom, professoriate, professors,
     proficiency, propensity, proper claim, property, property right,
     qualification, quality, regality, right, rightful authority,
     royal prerogative, sanction, school, senses, skill, speciality,
     staff, strong flair, strong point, sufficiency, susceptibility,
     talent, talents, the goods, the say, the say-so, the stuff, title,
     turn, vested authority, vested interest, vested right,
     vicarious authority, what it takes, wits
  
  

From Bouvier's Law Dictionary, Revised 6th Ed (1856) [bouvier]:

  FACULTY, canon law. A license; an authority. For example, the ordinary 
  having the disposal of all seats in the nave of a church, may grant this 
  power, which, when it is delegated, is called a faculty, to another. 
       2. Faculties are of two kinds; first, when the grant is to a man and 
  his heirs in gross; second, when it is to a person and his heirs, as 
  appurtenant to a house which he holds in the parish. 1 T. R. 429, 432; 12 
  Co. R. 106. 
  
  

From Bouvier's Law Dictionary, Revised 6th Ed (1856) [bouvier]:

  FACULTY, Scotch law. Equivalent to ability or power.  The term faculty is 
  more properly applied to a power founded on the consent of the party from 
  whom it springs, and not founded on property. Kames on Eq. 504.