Faculty
FAC'ULTY, noun [Latin facultas, from facio, to make.]
1. That power of the mind or intellect which enables it to receive, revive or modify perceptions; as the faculty of seeing, of hearing, of imagining, of remembering, etc.: or in general, the faculties may be called the powers or capacities of the mind.
2. The power of doing any thing; ability. There is no faculty or power in creatures, which can rightly perform its functions, without the perpetual aid of the Supreme Being.
3. The power of performing any action, natural, vital or animal.
The vital faculty is that by which life is preserved.
4. Facility of performance; the peculiar skill derived from practice, or practice aided by nature; habitual skill or ability; dexterity; adroitness; knack. One man has a remarkable faculty of telling a story; another, of inventing excuses for misconduct; a third, of reasoning; a fourth, of preaching.
5. Personal quality; disposition or habit, good or ill.
6. Power; authority.
Hath borne his faculties so meek. [Hardly legitimate.]
7. Mechanical power; as the faculty of the wedge. [Not used, nor legitimate.]
8. Natural virtue; efficacy; as the faculty of simples. [Not used, nor legitimate.]
9. Privilege; a right or power granted to a person by favor or indulgence, to do what by law he may not do; as the faculty of marrying without the bans being first published, or of ordaining a deacon under age. The archbishop of Canterbury has a court of faculties, for granting such privileges or dispensations.
10. In colleges, the masters and professors of the several sciences.
One of the members or departments of a university. In most universities there are four faculties; of art, including humanity and philosophy; of theology; of medicine; and of law.
In America, the faculty of a college or university consists of the president, professors and tutors.
The faculty of advocates, in Scotland, is a respectable body of lawyers who plead in all causes before the Courts of Session, Justiciary and Exchequer.