college

Pronunciation

• IPA: UK /ˈkɒl.ɪdʒ/, US /ˈkɑː.lɪdʒ/^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English college, borrowed from Old French college (“collegiate body”),^[2][3][4] a learned borrowing from Latin collēgium (“fellowship, community, guild”),^[3][2] from collēga (“partner in office”),^[3][2][5] formed from com- (“with, together”) and the stem of legāre (“to choose, depute”),^[2] which Etymonline traces to Proto-Indo-European *leg- (“to collect, gather”).^[2] Klein instead connects it with lēx (“law”), explaining it as “a union formed by law”.^[6] It is related to colleague.^[3][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

An organized body of persons with common functions and rights,^[2][4] especially a body of scholars and students within a university, as at Oxford and Cambridge: probably about 1378, in the writings of Wycliffe.^[3]

Semantic evolution

At first any corporate group could be a college, a sense kept in the electoral college and the college of cardinals.^[2] The buildings of a college are so called from 1379.^[7] The meaning “institution of higher education” appeared in 1563.^[3] In Scotland, and later in the United States and Canada, where a university might have only one college, the word came to mean an incorporated institution of the highest grade, and about 1800 any institution granting degrees.^[2] A prison was a college in slang from 1699.^[7] Collegiate is from 1514.^[3]

Timeline

• c. 1378 – a body of scholars within a university (Wycliffe).^[3]
• 1379 – the building of a college.^[7]
• 1514 – collegiate.^[3]
• 1563 – an institution of higher education.^[3]
• 1699 – slang, a prison.^[7]
• c. 1800 – any degree-granting institution.^[2]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. An institution of higher learning granting the bachelor's degree.
2. A school or division of a university offering instruction in a particular field.
3. A school offering specialized or technical instruction.
4. In Britain, one of the self-governing bodies that make up some universities, such as Oxford and Cambridge.
5. An organized body of people with common duties and privileges: the electoral college.

Word family

• intercollege
• postcollege
• precollege
• subcollege
• Benedict College
• College of Cardinals
• College Park
• College Station

Related words

• collegiate
• collegiate church
• collegium
• colleague
• collegial
• legate

References

1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b Soanes, Catherine; Stevenson, Angus, eds. (2004), Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 11th ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
7. ^ a b c d Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)