Colleges

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /ˈkɑləd͡ʒɪz/

Definitions

1. Establishments that provide post-secondary education and confer degrees in various fields of study
2. Institutions that facilitate learning beyond high school, offering undergraduate and graduate programs in numerous areas
3. Organizations offering academic programs beyond secondary school that award degrees or diplomas

Etymology: The most useful thing to know about "colleges" is that the word it takes its shape from began as a word for a group of people bound together by shared work or purpose. Latin "collēgium" was built from "con-", meaning "together", and "lēx", a law or agreement, and it originally meant a body of colleagues sharing an office or a bond of association. Its root sense is "those who are bound by the same law", which is a long way from a campus. The word reached English through Middle French and Old French, arriving in Middle English with its Latin sense of a community of people. Its meaning narrowed over the centuries, and the institutional sense of a place of higher learning grew out of groups of scholars who lived and studied together under shared rules. "Colleges" is simply the plural of "college", so it refers to more than one such institution. "Collegium" survives in English as a doublet, a separate borrowing of the same Latin word that kept closer to its Latin form.

Synonyms: universities, institutions, academies, schools, faculties

Antonyms: high schools, elementary schools, universities (in a different context), trade schools, vocational schools