What is "faculties"

Faculty \Fac"ul*ty\, n.; pl. Faculties. [F. facult?, L. facultas, fr. facilis easy (cf. facul easily), fr. fecere to make. See Fact, and cf. Facility.]

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.

   But know that in the soul Are many lesser faculties that serve Reason as chief.
   --Milton.

   What a piece of work is a man ! how noble in reason ! how infinite in faculty !
   --Shak.

2. Special mental endowment; characteristic knack.

   He had a ready faculty, indeed, of escaping from any topic that agitated his too sensitive and nervous temperament.
   --Hawthorne.

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

   This Duncan Hath borne his faculties so meek.
   --Shak.

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

   The pope . . . granted him a faculty to set him free from his promise.
   --Fuller.

   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.

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.

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.

   Dean of faculty. See under Dean.

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

   Syn: Talent; gift; endowment; dexterity; expertness; cleverness; readiness; ability; knack.

"powers or properties of one's mind," also "physical functions," early 16c., plural of faculty.

n. (plural of faculty English)

1. redirect faculty