college Meaning, Definition & Usage

noun the body of faculty and students of a college
noun an institution of higher education created to educate and grant degrees; often a part of a university
noun a complex of buildings in which an institution of higher education is housed

F. collège, L. collegium, fr. collega colleague. See Colleague.

A collection, body, or society of persons engaged in common pursuits, or having common duties and interests, and sometimes, by charter, peculiar rights and privileges; as, a college of heralds; a college of electors; a college of bishops.
The college of the cardinals. Shak.

Then they made colleges of sufferers; persons who, to secure their inheritance in the world to come, did cut off all their portion in this. Jer. Taylor.
A society of scholars or friends of learning, incorporated for study or instruction, esp. in the higher branches of knowledge; as, the colleges of Oxford and Cambridge Universities, and many American colleges. ✍ In France and some other parts of continental Europe, college is used to include schools occupied with rudimentary studies, and receiving children as pupils.
A building, or number of buildings, used by a college. "The gate of Trinity College." Macaulay.
Fig.: A community. R.
Thick as the college of the bees in May. Dryden.