Făc'ul-ty, n.

n. [Fr. faculté, Pr. facultat, Sp. facultad, It. facoltà, Lat. facultas, from facul, easily, from facere, to make.]

1Sense 1. Ability to act or perform, whether inborn or cultivated; capacity for any natural function; especially, an original mental power or capacity for 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.

The vital faculty is that by which life is preserved. Quincy.

What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculties! Shak.

2Sense 2. Privilege or permission; the right to act, granted by favor or indulgence; 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.

3Sense 3. A body of men to whom any specific right or privilege is granted; the graduates in any of the four departments of a university or college (Philosophy, Law, Medicine, or Theology), to whom is granted the right of teaching (profitendi or docendi) in the department in which they have studied; especially, (a.) The members of a profession or calling—rarely the profession itself—as the medical faculty, the legal faculty, and the like; as, the advice of the faculty. (b.) The body of graduates actually exercising in a college the right of teaching; the professors and tutors in a college.

Synonyms—Talent; gift; endowment; dexterity; adroitness; ability; knack.