- col|lege
- col|lege «KOL ihj», noun.1. a school beyond high school that gives degrees: »
After finishing high school, he went to college and then became a teacher.
2. the academic department of a university for general instruction, as distinguished from the special, professional, or graduate schools: »Between the first and second world wars, Columbia College in New York set the pattern for “general education” in U.S. colleges (Newsweek).
3. a school for special or professional training, for example in medicine, pharmacy, agriculture, or music, whether as part of a university or independently: »She went to a business college to learn to be a secretary.
4. a group of persons with the same duties and privileges: »the electoral college. Many large hospitals have a college of surgeons.
5. the building or group of buildings used by a college.6. a) a separately endowed, self-governing association of scholars within a university (as at Oxford and Cambridge in England), engaged in study and the instruction of students. b) a similar association not within a university.7. a secondary school (in France).8. a community of clergy living together on a foundation for religious service, etc.9. Archaic. a company; crowd; assemblage: »They rode in proud array, thick as the college of the bees in May (John Dryden).
10. Archaic. a course of study or lectures leading to a degree.11. British Slang. a prison.╂[< Old French college, learned borrowing from Latin collēgium a fellowship, company < com- together + lēgāre to contract, appoint < lēx, lēgis law]
Useful english dictionary. 2012.