Etymologically
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college

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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
  • 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)