faculty

Pronunciation

• IPA: /ˈfæk.əl.ti/^[1]

Etymology

It is Middle English faculte, borrowed from Old French faculte (“skill, learning”) and directly borrowed from Latin facultās (“power, ability, opportunity; abundance, wealth”) (accusative facultatem),^[2][3][4] from earlier *facli-tāt-s, from facilis (“easy to do”) (see facile),^[2][3] from facere “to do”, from the PIE root Proto-Indo-European *dhe- (“to set, put”).^[3] The OED notes that facultas and facilitas were at first forms of one word, facilitas keeping the sense “easiness”.^[3] The academic sense is from Medieval Latin facultas “branch of learning”, translating Greek dynamis, used so by Aristotle.^[2][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Power, ability, resources: about 1380, in Chaucer's translation of Boethius.^[2][3] A branch of knowledge is also about 1380, in Chaucer's House of Fame, and Etymonline thinks it probably the earliest sense in English, found in Anglo-Latin from the late 12th century.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

The members of a profession, or of a university department, are a faculty from about 1450.^[2] Etymonline explains this from “ability in knowledge” or a body of persons given specific professional powers; at first each department was a faculty, and the whole teaching staff of a college is so called from 1767.^[3] A power of the body or one of its organs is from before 1500,^[6] and one of the powers of the mind, such as reason or memory, from 1588.^[6] A power or licence granted by authority is from the 16th century.^[4] General executive ability, especially in housekeeping, is chiefly American from 1859.^[6]

Timeline

• c. 1380 – ability; a branch of learning.^[2]
• c. 1450 – members of a profession.^[2]
• before 1500 – a bodily power.^[6]
• 1588 – a power of the mind.^[6]
• 1767 – the teaching staff of a college.^[3]
• 1859 – practical ability.^[6]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. One of the natural powers of the mind or body, such as reason, memory or sight.
2. An ability or talent: a faculty for languages.
3. A department of a university dealing with a group of subjects.
4. (chiefly North America) The teaching staff of a university, college or school.
5. A power or right granted by authority, especially by the church.

Word family

• interfaculty

Related words

• facultative
• facile
• facility
• faculties
• difficulty
• fact

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 Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ a b c d e f Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press