faculties

Webster's Dictionary (GCIDE)

1.Ability to act or perform, whether inborn or cultivated; capacity for any natural function; especially, an original mental power or capacity for any of the well-known classes of mental activity; psychical or soul capacity; capacity for any of the leading kinds of soul activity, as knowledge, feeling, volition; intellectual endowment or gift; power; as, faculties of the mind or the soul. [1913 Webster]

But know that in the soul Are many lesser faculties that serve Reason as chief.— Milton.[1913 Webster]

What a piece of work is a man ! how noble in reason ! how infinite in faculty !— Shak.[1913 Webster]

2.Special mental endowment; characteristic knack. [1913 Webster]

He had a ready faculty, indeed, of escaping from any topic that agitated his too sensitive and nervous temperament.— Hawthorne.[1913 Webster]

3.Power; prerogative or attribute of office. [R.] [1913 Webster]

This Duncan Hath borne his faculties so meek.— Shak.[1913 Webster]

4.Privilege or permission, granted by favor or indulgence, to do a particular thing; authority; license; dispensation. [1913 Webster]

The pope . . . granted him a faculty to set him free from his promise.— Fuller.[1913 Webster]

It had not only faculty to inspect all bishops' dioceses, but to change what laws and statutes they should think fit to alter among the colleges.— Evelyn.[1913 Webster]

5.A body of a men to whom any specific right or privilege is granted; formerly, the graduates in any of the four departments of a university or college (Philosophy, Law, Medicine, or Theology), to whom was granted the right of teaching (profitendi or docendi) in the department in which they had studied; at present, the members of a profession itself; as, the medical faculty; the legal faculty, etc. [1913 Webster]

6.(Amer. Colleges) The body of person to whom are intrusted the government and instruction of a college or university, or of one of its departments; the president, professors, and tutors in a college. [1913 Webster]

Dean of faculty. See under Dean.

Faculty of advocates. (Scot.) See under Advocate.

Syn: Talent; gift; endowment; dexterity; expertness; cleverness; readiness; ability; knack. [1913 Webster]