Faculty

Forms: 4–6 faculte, (5 facultee), 5–7 facultie, 6– faculty. [ME. faculte, a. F. faculté, ad. L. facultāt-em power, ability, opportunity, also resources, wealth, f. facilis easy (cf. early L. facul adv. = facile easily).

  Facultās and facilitās (see FACILITY) were originally different forms of the same word; the latter, owing to its more obvious relation to the adj., retained the primary sense of ‘easiness,’ which the former had ceased to have before the classical period.]

  I.  ‘The power of doing anything’ (J.).

  1.  Of persons: An ability or aptitude, whether natural or acquired, for any special kind of action; formerly also, ability, ‘parts,’ capacity in general. Sometimes (influenced by sense 4) used to denote a native as opposed to an acquired aptitude.

1490.  Caxton, Eneydos, xv. 57. To her youen the facultee and power for to reherce and saye alle thinges that sholde come in her mouthe.

1573.  G. Harvey, Letter-bk. (Camden), 7. M. Lewins extemporal faculti is better then M. Becons is.

1586.  A. Day, The English Secretary, II. (1625), 128. The facultie and use of well writing.

1594.  Hooker, Eccl. Pol., I. viii. 68. There is no kinde of faculty or power in Man, or any other Creature, which can rightly perform the Functions allotted to it, without perpetual aid and concurrence of that Supream Cause of all things.

1605.  Camden, Rem., 11. Many excelling in Poeticall facultie.

1614.  Bp. Hall, A Recollection of such Treatises, 87. A man of extraordinary parts makes himselfe by strange and singular behaviour more admired; which if a man of but common faculty doe imitate, he makes himselfe ridiculous.

1636.  Massinger, Bashf. Lover, IV. i.

1711.  Steele, The Spectator, No. 95, 19 June, ¶ 3. This Faculty of Weeping, is peculiar only to some Constitutions.

1751.  Johnson, The Rambler, No. 141, 23 July, ¶ 6. I … was quickly distinguished as a wit by the ladies, a species of beings only heard of at the university, whom I had no sooner the happiness of approaching than I devoted all my faculties to the ambition of pleasing them.

1795.  Mason, Ch. Mus., iii. 204. Music, though in one sense an Art, yet is in another a natural faculty, like many other distributed in an unequal proportion among the Human Species.

1829.  Carlyle, Voltaire, in Critical and Miscellaneous Essays (1857), II. 1. Could ambition always choose its own path, and were will in human undertakings synonymous with faculty, all truly ambitious men would be men of letters.

1836.  Johnsoniana, 238. No man, had, like him, the faculty of teaching inferior minds the art of thinking.

1853.  Lynch, Self-Improv., iii. 68. Every self-improving man has faculty enough to become a good reader.

  † b.  A personal quality; disposition. Obs.

c. 1565.  Lindsay of Pitscottie, Chron. Scot. (1728), 89. They knew the King’s Faculties, that he was never hardy, nor yet constant in Battle.

c. 1610.  Sir J. Melvil, Mem. (1683), 30. The Queen Mother knowing his faculty, handled the matter so finely by the Constables help, that the King of Navarr procured from the Three Estates, that the Queen Mother should be Regent of the Realm.

1613.  Shaks., Hen. VIII., I. ii. 73.

  c.  General executive ability, esp. in domestic matters. (Chiefly U. S., but current colloq. in some circles in England.)

1859.  Mrs. Stowe, Minister’s Wooing, I. i. 2. Faculty is Yankee for savoir faire, and the opposite virtue to shiftlessness.

1884.  J. D. Whiting, A Providence Thwarted, in Harper’s Mag., LXIX. Oct., 741/1. Lizzie had ‘faculty,’ and proved a notable housekeeper.

  † 2.  Of things: A power or capacity; an active quality, efficient property or virtue. Obs.

1490.  Caxton, Eneydos, i. 13. The sterres of the heuen hadde wythholden theyr clere illustracyons, And had no faculte ne power by theyr naturel lyghte to enlumyne the sayd place.

1526.  Pilgr. Perf. (W. de W., 1531), 143. It passeth the faculty of our barbarous tonge to expresse ony of them.

1578.  Lyte, Dodoens, II. cvi. 296. Lovage, in facultie and vertues doth not differ much from Ligusticum.

1601.  Shaks., Jul. C., I. iii. 67.

1620.  Venner, Via Recta, v. 87. Asses milke … is … of a penetrating, cooling and detersiue faculty.

1665.  Phil. Trans., I. 49. The Electrical faculty of Amber.

1707.  Curios. in Husb. & Gard., 167. Nitre is of great Use … in Regard to its Faculty of contributing … to the Propagation of Plants.

  † b.  One of the ‘mechanical powers.’

1641.  Wilkins, Math. Magick, I. iii. (1648), 13. Of the first Mechanical faculty, the Ballance. Ibid., vii. 43. That which is reckon’d for the fourth Faculty, is the Pulley: which is of such ordinary use, that it needs not any particular description.

1663.  Charleton, Chor. Gigant., 60. Their being versed in the use of the Leaver, Roller, Wheel, Pulley, Wedge, and Screw, which are fundamental Faculties of Mechaniques, it being scarce conceivable, how otherwise they should raise such portentous Monuments, as they did.

  c.  Math. A function of the form x|^ma, i.e. x(x + a) (x + 2a) (x + 3a) … to m factors. See FACTORIAL B a.

  [Introduced c. 1798 by Kramp, who afterwards withdrew it in favour of Arbogast’s term factorial. The word has since been revived, but is less frequent in English than in Continental use.]

1889.  Chrystal, Algebra, II. 374. Any faculty can always be reduced to another whose difference is unity.

  3.  An inherent power or property of the body or of one of its organs; a physical capability or function.

a. 1500.  The Tale of Colkelbie Sow, 637.

1543.  Traheron, Vigo’s Chirurg., Interpr. strange Words, There ben thre faculties … whych gouerne man, and are distributed to the hole bodye … namely animal, vital, and natural.

1576.  A. Fleming, A Panoplie of Epistles, 324, marg. The externall ornaments of the bodie, and the abilities of the same, whiche are called corporall faculties, excepted.

1607.  T. Walkington, The Optick Glasse of Humors, viii. (1664), 100. The spirits … impart a faculty to the nerves of sence and reall motion.

1615.  Crooke, Body of Man, 406. If the arteries bee dilated by a faculty, then are they contracted by their grauity. Ibid., 612. The Visiue Facultie … the Faculty of Hearing.

1656.  Bramhall, Replic., i. 5. Sensibility and a locomotive faculty are essentiall to every living creature.

1684.  trans. Bonet’s Merc. Compit., I. 9. If the Faculty of the Guts be slow … and dull, they must he involuntarily excited to motion.

1729.  Butler, Serm., Wks. 1874, II. 42. A man may use the faculty of speech as an instrument of false witness.

1741.  Chambers, Cycl., s.v. To account for the Act of Digestion, they [the antient Philosophers] suppos’d a Digestive Faculty in the Stomach.

1875.  Jowett, Plato (ed. 2), III. 362, The Republic, V. Sight and hearing, for example, I should call faculties.

  4.  One of the several ‘powers’ of the mind, variously enumerated by psychologists: e.g., the will, the reason, memory, etc.

  (By phrenologists applied to the congenital aptitudes supposed to be indicated by the cranial ‘organs’ or ‘bumps’: e.g., ‘language,’ ‘imitation,’ ‘constructiveness.’ This use has greatly influenced popular language.)

1588.  Fraunce, Lawiers Log., I. i. 2. Artificiall Logike is gathered out of diuers examples of naturall reason, which is not any Art of Logike, but that ingrauen gift and facultie of wit and reason shining in the perticuler discourses of seuerall men, whereby they both inuent, and orderly dispose, thereby to iudge of that they haue inuented.

1614.  Bp. Hall, A Recollection of such Treatises, 66. When we are born, who knowes whether with the due features of a man, we shall haue the faculties of reason and vnderstanding?

1690.  Locke, Hum. Und., II. xxi. (1695), 126. The Understanding and Will are two Faculties of the Mind.

1726.  Butler, Serm., Wks. 1874, II. 27. You cannot form a notion of this faculty, conscience, without [etc.].

1785.  Reid, Int. Powers, VI. iv. 569. The faculties of consciousness, of memory, of external sense, and of reason, are all equally the gifts of Nature.

1830.  Mackintosh, Eth. Philos., Wks. 1846, I. 159. The Moral Faculty … is intelligibly and properly spoken of as One.

1839.  Ld. Brougham, Statesm. Geo. III., Loughborough (ed. 2), 44. Changes … effected while the monarch’s faculties were asleep.

1859.  Mill, Liberty (1865), 34/2. No need of any other faculty than the ape-like one of imitation.

1885.  F. Temple, Relat. Relig. & Sc., ii. 45–6. Our personality … is centred in one faculty which we call the will.

  † 5.  Pecuniary ability, means, resources; possessions, property. sing. and pl. Also attrib., as in faculty tax. Obs.

1382.  Wyclif, Gen. xxxi. 14. Han we eny thing of residewe in faculteis and erytage of the hows of oure fader? Ibid., Tobit i. 25. Tobie is turned aȝeen to his hous, and al his faculte restorid to hym.

1490.  Caxton, How to Die, 11. Wylt thou the thynges that thou hast taken be by the restored after the value of thy faculte.

1615.  Chapman, Odyss., I. 620.

1649.  Alcoran, 47. Restore to them [Orphans] their faculties, and devour them not unjustly before they be of age.

1781.  Gibbon, Decl. & F., II. 28. If so heavy an expence surpassed the faculties or the inclination of the magistrates … the sum was supplied from the Imperial treasury.

1792.  A. Young, Trav. France, 104. The prices … are beyond their faculties and occasion great misery.

1797.  Burke, Regic. Peace, iii. Wks. VIII. 356. We raise no faculty tax. We preserve [? read presume] the faculty from the expence.

  II.  Kind of ability; branch of art or science.

  † 6.  A branch or department of knowledge. Obs.

  In this sense the word is used to render the Med. L. facultas = Gr. δύναμις used by Aristotle for an art or branch of learning.

c. 1384.  Chaucer, H. Fame, I. 248. To speke of love? hyt wol not be; I kannot of that faculte.

c. 1400.  Usk, The Testament of Love, II. (1560), 282 b/2. All the remnaunt beene no genders but of grace, in facultie of Grammar.

1494.  Fabyan, Chron., VI. ccxiv. 232. Y^e whiche I remytte to theym that haue experience in suche facultie.

1553.  T. Wilson, Rhet. (1580), 30. The swetnesse of the tongue, the holsomnesse of the ayer in other countries, the goodly wittes of the ientlemen, the straunge and auncient buildynges, the wonderful monumentes, the great learned Clerckes in al faculties, with diuerse other like, and almost infinite pleasures.

1598.  F. Meres, in Shaks. C. Praise, 26. As Pindarus, Anacreon and Callimachus among the Greekes; and Horace and Catullus among the Latines are the best Lyrick Poets: so in this faculty the best among our Poets are Spencer (who excelleth in all kinds) Daniel, Drayton, Shakespeare, Bretton.

a. 1661.  Fuller, Worthies (1840), III. 335–6. He [William Horeman] was one of the most general scholars of his age, as may appear by the diffusiveness of his learning, and books written in all faculties:—Grammar, of Orthography: Poetry, of the Quantities of Penultime Syllables: History, [etc.].

1757.  Burke, Abridgm. Eng. Hist., II. ii. He [Theodorus] brought with him a number of valuable books in many faculties; and among them a magnificent copy of the works of Homer, the most antient and best of poets, and the best chosen, to inspire a people, just initiated into letters, with an ardent love, and with a true taste for the sciences.

  7.  spec. One of the departments of learning at a University. Hence Dean of a Faculty.

  When four faculties are mentioned, those intended are Theology, Canon and Civil Law, Medicine, Arts, of which the first three were called the Superior Faculties. Logic, Rhetoric, Astrology, Surgery, Grammar, and (in the English Universities) Music are occasionally spoken of as Faculties, and degrees could be taken in them; but the Masters teaching these branches did not form distinct bodies as those mentioned in sense 9.

[c. 1184.  Giraldus Cambrensis, De Gestis, II. i. (Rolls), I. 48. Ubinam in jure studuerit … Præceptor autem ejusdem in ea facultate. Ibid., II. xvi. (Rolls), I. 73. In crastino vero doctores [hospitio suscepit] diversarum facultatum omnes.]

1387.  Trevisa, Higden (Rolls), VI. 259. Whan eny man is i-congyed þere to commence in eny faculte.

1482.  Monk of Evesham (Arb.), 97. In connyng of dyuynyte as in other lyberals facultees.

1581.  Mulcaster, Positions, xxxvii. (1887), 162. I do knowe this man, whom I now prefer to this degree, in this facultie, in the sufficiencie of abilitie, which his title pretendeth.

1641.  Evelyn, Mem. (1857), I. 29. The … Professor … in Latin demanded … to what Faculty I addicted myself.

1649.  J. H., Motion to Parl., Adv. Learn., 27. We have hardly Professours for the three principall faculties.

1835.  Malden, Orig. Univ., 5. This faculty [of arts] originally constituted the whole university [of Paris]; and the faculties of theology, law, and medicine, were not added till a later period.

1868.  M. Pattison, Academ. Org., iv. 114. In the former, or colleges properly so called, the head will be the dean of his faculty, or the president of a learned body.

1875.  Edin. Univ. Calendar, 37. The Chairs of the University are comprehended in the four Faculties. The affairs of each Faculty are presided over by a Dean.

1879.  M. Arnold, Irish Cathol., Mixed Ess. 101. At Bonn there is a Protestant faculty of theology.

1892.  Durham Univ. Calendar, cxii. Degrees in the Faculty of Music.

  8.  In a more extended sense: That in which any one is skilled; an art, trade, occupation, profession. Obs. exc. arch. or Hist.

c. 1386.  Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales, The Prologue, 243.

1494.  Fabyan, Chron., II. xlvi. 29. A cunnynge musician; the whiche, for his excellence in that facultie, was called of the Brytons God of Glemen.

1503.  Act 19 Hen. VII., c. 11. The facultie of Bowyers [is] almoste distroyed.

1529.  in Vicary’s Anat. (1888), App. xiv. 253. No persone … shall take … any … Straunger, to occupy the facultie of Barbery or Surgery.

1576.  A. Fleming, A Panoplie of Epistles, 163. They lende listening eare, to the lewde language of detestable slaunderers: shoulde haue them in high reputation and fauour, who professe that facultie, and vse it for a common exercise.

1605.  Rowlands, Hell’s Broke Loose, 14. By facultie at first, I was a Taylour.

1675.  Art Contentm., vii. § 6. 214. We … rely upon men in their own faculty. We put our estates in the lawyer’s hand, our bodies into the physician’s.

1687.  Congreve, Old Bach., I. i. Wit, be my faculty and pleasure my occupation.

1703.  T. N., City & C. Purchaser, 208. A Wise, Wealthy, and ancient Soap-boyler, dwelling without Aldgate.… So likewise, another Gentleman of the same Faculty … in Southwark.

1839.  Alison, Hist. Europe, I. ii. § 66. 184. They carried this principle of free trade so far as to apply it to the whole relations of social life, and proposed to abolish all incorporations, crafts, faculties, apprenticeships, and restrictions of every kind, from those of medicine and theology downwards, and to let every man exercise any profession, set up any trade, or carry on any employment in any part of the kingdom.

1841.  Stephen, Comm. Laws Eng., I. 7. To gentlemen of the faculty of physic the study of the law is attended with some importance.

1853.  Marsden, The History of the Early Puritans, 388. Above four score doctors in the university and the three learned faculties, gratefully acknowledge their obligations to him as their preceptor.

  9.  The whole body of Masters and Doctors, sometimes including also the students, in any one of the studies, Theology, Law, Medicine, Arts.

  The use of the Latin word in this sense originated at some period in the 13th cent.; quot. 1255 indicates a use intermediate between this and sense 7.

[1255.  in Chartularium Univ. Paris (1889), I. 278. Nos … magistri artium … propter novum et inestimabile periculum, quod in facultate nostra imminebat.

1325.  Title of Decree, in Munimenta Acad. (Rolls), I. 117. Quod facultas artium plene deliberet de tractandis in congregatione generali.]

c. 1425.  Andrew of Wyntoun, Orygynale Cronykil of Scotland, VIII. iv. 241.

1673.  Ray, Journ. Low C., 17. The several Faculties are distinguished by their Habits: Divinity-Students wear continually Gowns and square Caps; those of other Faculties wear none, except at their publick Exercises in the Schools.

1687.  Lond. Gaz., No. 2275/3, 24. Doctors of the several Faculties, the two Proctors, and 19 Masters of Arts.

1774.  Warton, Hist. Eng. Poetry, I. Diss. ii. 11. Even so late as the year 1471, when Louis the eleventh of France borrowed the works of the Arabian physician Rhasis, from the faculty of medicine at Paris, he not only deposited by way of pledge a quantity of valuable plate, but was obliged to procure a nobleman to join with him as surety in a deed, by which he bound himself to return it under a considerable forfeiture.

1832.  trans. Sismondi’s Ital. Rep., vii. 152. The faculty of the Sorbonne, in the university of Paris, was acknowledged to be the first theological school in Europe; it was that in which the most acuteness and depth of thought were united to the most implicit faith.

  10.  transf. The members of a particular profession regarded as one body: a. of the medical profession (in popular language ‘The Faculty’).

1511–2.  Act 3 Hen. VIII., c. 11. Calling to them such expert persons in the said Faculties [of Physicians and Surgeons].

1529.  More, A Dyaloge of Comfort against Tribulacion, II. Wks., 1185/2. One of the most cunning men in y^t faculty.

1638.  T. Whitaker, Blood of Grape, Pref. 2. The faculty deserveth the patronage of a Prince.

1699.  Garth, The Dispensary, IV. (1730), 100.

1747.  Wesley, Prim. Physic (1762), p. xiii. We must do something to oblige the Faculty, or they will tear us in Pieces.

1840.  Hood, Up the Rhine, 14. Fat bacon, for instance, was once in vogue amongst the Faculty for weak digestions.

1883.  J. Gilmour, Among the Mongols, xv. 186. Their own faculty have no remedy for this disease.

  b.  Sc. The Faculty (also the Dean and Faculty) of Advocates.

1711.  Act Faculty Edin., 18 July in Lond. Gaz., No. 4887/3. The Dean and Faculty of Advocates understanding, that several malicious Reports have been rais’d.

1848.  Wharton, Law Lex., Faculty of Advocates, the college or society of advocates in Scotland, who plead in all actions before the courts of sessions, justiciary, and exchequer.

a. 1862.  Buckle, Civiliz. (1869), III. iii. 145. A great part of the Faculty of Advocates was expelled from Edinburgh.

  III.  Conferred power, authority, privilege.

  11.  Power, liberty, or right of doing something, conferred by law or permission of a superior. Faculty to burden: Sc. Law (see quot. 1809).

1534.  in W. H. Turner, Select Rec. Oxford, 128. They would clere take away from the Chaunceller all faculty to banish … eny townesmen.

1605.  Shaks., Macb., I. vii. 17.

1681.  in Picton, L’pool Munic. Rec. (1883), I. 271. For usinge the facultie of a freeman (in buyring and selling sugars) hee not being free.

1752.  Carte, Hist. Eng., III. 345. Pole, having advice of what had passed, laid aside the marks of his legatine authority, and abstained from the exercise of his faculties.

1800.  Colquhoun, Comm. Thames, viii. 259. Nothing can exceed the anxiety and care which have been manifested in guarding Innocence from Oppression, and of divesting Power of the Faculty of Abuse.

1809.  Tomlins, Law Dict., s.v. In the Scotch law, faculty is synonymous with power: thus a faculty to burden, is the power or right of charging an estate with a sum of money.

1824.  J. Marshall, Const. Opin. (1839), 320. The charter of incorporation not only creates it [a bank], but gives it every faculty which it possesses.

1865.  M. Arnold, Ess. Crit., x. (1875), 422. Something anti-civil and anti-social which the State had the faculty to judge and the duty to suppress.

  b.  A dispensation, license: esp. Eccl. an authorization or license granted by an ecclesiastical superior to some one to perform some action or occupy some position which otherwise he could not legally do or hold. Court of Faculties: a court having power to grant faculties in certain cases. Master of Faculties: the chief officer of that court.

1533–4.  Act 25 Hen. VIII., c. 21 § 3. The Archbishop of Canterburie … shall haue power and authoritie … to giue … dispensations, compositions, faculties, grants, rescripts [etc.].

1591.  Lambarde, Archeion (1635), 11. The Court of Faculties, for Dispensations.

1607.  Cowel, Interpr., s.v. There is an especiall officer vnder the Archbishop of Canterbury, called (Magister ad facultates) the Master of the faculties.

1662.  Bk. Com. Prayer, Ord. Deacons, Pref. None shall be admitted a Deacon, except he be Twenty three years of age, unless he have a Faculty.

1712.  Prideaux, Direct. Ch.-wardens (ed. 4), 75. The Bishop can grant Faculties for the building … of them.

1843.  Act 6–7 Vict., c. 90 § 8. The Master of the Faculties … is hereby … empowered to issue Commissions [etc.].

1857.  Froude, Short Stud., Monast. (1867), 282. An abbot able to purchase … a faculty to confer holy orders.

1869.  Times, 16 March, 12/4. This was an application … for a faculty or license to make some alterations in the interior of the church.

1871.  Phillimore, Blunt’s Church Law, IV. i. 263. Private rights to particular seats, conferred by a faculty, i.e. a license from the ordinary.

1885.  T. Mozley, Remin., II. lxxv. 70. They [the faculties] did not assign pews to persons, or to families, or to houses, but to persons and families residing in certain houses.

  IV.  12. attrib. a. (sense 11) as faculty-court, -office. b. (sense 7) as faculty-place. c. (sense 10) as faculty-composition, -habits, -influence; also, faculty-pew, -seat, a pew or seat in a parish church appropriated to particular persons by a faculty: cf. sense 11; † faculty-tax, a property or income tax.

1790.  Burke, Fr. Rev., Wks. V. 97. If the house of commons were to have an wholly professional and faculty composition, what is the power of the house of commons, circumscribed and shut in by the immoveable barriers of law, usages, positive rules of doctrine and practice, counterpoised by the house of lords, and every moment of its existence at the discretion of the crown to continue, prorogue, or dissolve us?

1863.  H. Cox, Instit., II. xi. 568. Of these courts the chief is the *Faculty Court, belonging to the Archbishop of Canterbury.

1790.  Burke, Fr. Rev., Wks. V. 97. When men are too much confined to professional and faculty habits, and, as it were, inveterate in the recurrent employment of that narrow circle, they are rather disabled than qualified for whatever depends on the knowledge of mankind, on experience in mixed affairs, on a comprehensive connected view of the various complicated external and internal interests which go to the formation of that multifarious thing called a state.

1791.  Mackintosh, Vind. Gall., Wks. 1846, III. 64. This *‘faculty influence,’ as Mr. Burke chooses to phrase it, was not injuriously predominant.

1715.  Kersey, *Faculty-office.

1881.  Dict. Eng. Churchm., 354. All … pews other than *faculty pews in an ancient church are the common property of the parish.

1682.  Prideaux, Lett. (Camden), 123. I hope by this you are secured of a *faculty place … and advise you to thinke of takeing your D^rs degree in laws as soon as you can.

1872.  Phillimore, Blunt’s Church Law, IV. 1. 263, marg. No jurisdiction in *faculty seats.

1766.  Hist. Europe, in Ann. Reg., 45/2. Besides a *faculty-tax upon all personal estates.

1797.  Burke, Regic. Peace, iii. Wks. VIII. 356. Land and offices only excepted we raise no faculty tax.