faculty

gift often implies special favor by God or nature.

faculty applies to an innate or less often acquired ability for a particular accomplishment or function.

aptitude implies a natural liking for some activity and the likelihood of success in it.

bent is nearly equal to aptitude but it stresses inclination perhaps more than specific ability.

talent suggests a marked natural ability that needs to be developed.

genius suggests impressive inborn creative ability.

knack implies a comparatively minor but special ability making for ease and dexterity in performance.

Examples of faculty in a Sentence

Quotes--> Extra Examples--> She's a member of the Harvard faculty. The school hired more faculty. a meeting with students and faculty She has a faculty for making friends. The Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

Recent Examples on the Web There has also been no action against faculty and department heads who placed or allowed political and bigoted statements onto many UC websites. — Thomas Elias, The Mercury News, 9 Aug. 2024 As with the startling announcement at Wells, students and faculty at Catalan’s college were shocked. — Zachary Schermele, USA TODAY, 4 Aug. 2024 Advertisement All the colleges that were reviewed did not disclose to students, faculty and administrators all campus safety policies, emergency response and evacuation procedures, and programs that federal law requires. — Karen Garcia, Los Angeles Times, 3 Aug. 2024 Flashback: More than 130 people were arrested over two pro-Palestinian protests at UT in April, as Hartzell called in state troopers, drawing outrage from students and faculty. — Asher Price, Axios, 16 Aug. 2024 See all Example Sentences for faculty

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'faculty.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

Middle English faculte "power, ability, field of knowledge, branch of learning at a university," borrowed from Anglo-French faculté, borrowed from Medieval Latin facultāt-, facultās (Latin, "power, ability, opportunity, quantity available"), from Latin *faklis, earlier form of facilis "easy, accommodating" + -tāt-, -tās -ty — more at facile

Note: Latin facultās presumably developed from an original *faklitāts (via *fakl̥tāts > *fakiltāts > facultās), and hence is a doublet of facilitās "quality of being easily performed" (see facility), a derivative formed after facilis had assumed its attested form (with *-klis > -cilis). The difference in meaning between the two derivatives suggests the original adjective *faklis may have meant something like "possessing the power, able" (whence "easily done," conforming to other adjectives in -ilis).

14th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1