college Hear it!

college Definition

col·lege (käl′ij)

noun

  1. an association of individuals having certain powers and duties, and engaged in some common pursuit the electoral college

  2. Etymology: orig. with reference to the university communities of Oxford & Cambridge

    an institution of higher education that grants degrees, as a bachelor's degree after a four-year course or an associate degree after a two-year course: it is sometimes the undergraduate division of a university
  3. any of the schools of a university offering instruction and granting degrees in any of several specialized courses of study, esp. graduate study, as in liberal arts, architecture, law, or medicine
  4. a school offering specialized instruction in some profession or occupation a secretarial college
  5. Brit., Cdn. a private secondary school
  6. the students, faculty, or administrators of a college
  7. a clerical group that has been given the legal status of an ecclesiastical corporation
  8. the building or buildings of a college

Etymology: ME & OFr < L collegium, community, society, guild, fraternity < collega: see colleague

college Synonyms

college

n.

institute, professional school, university, community college, liberal arts college, teachers college, junior college, four-year college, state college, privately endowed college, denominational college, alma mater, seminary, conservatory, polytechnic, lyceum, hall; see also school 1, university.

college Usage Examples

Converse of object

  • found: At the same time Catholic women students from the newly founded female Colleges were treated warily by their male counterparts.
  • accredit: Such courses are generally held at colleges accredited by the National Council for the Training of Journalists.
  • attend: A full time course attending college for a minimum of 14 hours per week.

Adjective modifier

  • fe: Over 11,000 students studied HE programs in FE Colleges in 2004/5.
  • sixth: Several students are now attending the local sixth form college.
  • theological: For the past year Colin has been studying full time at Oak Hill theological college.
  • electoral: The Bench of Bishops of the Church in Wales are also members of the electoral college.
  • further: Recently a large number of further education colleges have shown interest in offering the Technical Awards.
  • tertiary: It is all part of Labor's leveling agenda of enforcing monolithic conformity, and denying pupils choice by pushing them into tertiary colleges.

Modifies a noun

  • leaver: Every year we compile a survey of all school and college leavers to find out what they have gone on to do.
  • lecturer: I intend to post the book to a very dear college lecturer friend in Kuala Lumpur " .
  • campus: I have my own room on the ground floor of a five bedroomed house within the college campus.
  • football: Angie acquired her professional name Angie Dickinson when she married the college football star, Gene Dickinson.
  • basketball: Here's a man that was one of the best college basketball players I ever saw.
  • chapel: Pulpit and altar rails have C18 carved panels said to have come " from a college chapel " .

Noun used with modifier

  • sixth-form: Michael became serious about composing while studying A-level music at St Vincent sixth-form college, Gosport, Hampshire.
  • fe: The next development was at the local FE college.
  • education: Recently a large number of further education colleges have shown interest in offering the Technical Awards.
  • partner: These pages have been specially adapted for partner college students from a series of study guides at the University of Plymouth.
  • art: My daughter will be coming to study at the local art college in the Autumn.
college Quotes

Extreme busyness, whether at school or college, kirk or market, is a symptom of a deficient vitality; and a faculty for idleness implies a catholic appetite and a strong sense of personal identity.

—Stevenson, Robert Louis

   But thousands die, without or this or that, Die, and endow a college, or a cat.

—Pope, Alexander

Theyare not clever school boys or scholarship candidates, but 'Fellows of another college'.

—Littlewood,John Edensor

To the University of Oxford I acknowledge no obligation; and she will as cheerfully renounce me for a son, as I am willing to disclaim her for a mother. I spent fourteen months at Magdalen College: they proved the fourteen months the most idle and unprofitable of my whole life.

—Gibbon, Edward

It has lately been brought to my knowledge That the Ministers fully design To suppress each cathedral and college, And eject every learned divine. To assist this detestable scheme Three nuncios from Rome are come over; They left Calais on Monday by steam, And landed to dinner at Dover.

—1st Baron

Thisgreat College, of this ancient University, has seen some strange sights. It has seen Wordsworth drunk and Porson sober. And here am I, a better poet than Porson, and a better scholar than Wordsworth, betwixt and between.

—Housman, A(lfred) E(dward)