Col"lege (?), n. [F. college, L. collegium, fr. collega colleague. See Colleague.]
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.
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.
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.
⇒ In France and some other parts of continental Europe, college is used to include schools occupied with rudimentary studies, and receiving children as pupils.
A building, or number of buildings, used by a college.
"The gate of Trinity College
Fig.: A community.
Thick as the college of the bees in May.
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.
© Webster 1913.