Col"lege (?), n. [F. collège, L. collegium, fr.
collega colleague. See Colleague.]
1. A collection, body, or society of
persons engaged in common pursuits, or having common duties and interests, and sometimes, by charter, peculiar rights and privileges; as, a college of heralds; a college of electors; a college of bishops.
The college of the cardinals.
Shak.
Then they made colleges of sufferers; persons who, to secure their inheritance in the world
to come, did
cut off all
their portion in this.
Jer.
Taylor.
2. A society of
scholars or friends of learning, incorporated
for study or instruction, esp. in the higher branches of knowledge; as, the colleges of Oxford and
Cambridge Universities, and many
American colleges.
&fist; In France and some other parts of continental Europe, college is used to include schools occupied with rudimentary studies,
and receiving children as pupils.
3. A building, or number of
buildings, used by a college. "The gate of Trinity College."
Macaulay.
4. Fig.:
A community. [R.]
Thick as the college of the bees in May.
Dryden.
College of justice, a term applied in Scotland to the supreme civil courts and their principal officers. -- The sacred college, the college or cardinals at Rome.
Hear it pronounced