College

How to spell college

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce college

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does college mean?

1. nounAn institution of higher or further education, or a self-governing body within a university.

College in a sentence

• She enrolled at the local college to study accounting.

• The college offers evening classes for working adults.

Where does college come from?

Language of origin: Latin

College comes from the Latin collegium, which meant a body of colleagues, a partnership, or an association of people bound by shared rules or duties. That noun was built from collega, meaning 'colleague' or 'partner in office', which itself joins com- ('together') with a root tied to legare, 'to depute or bind by law', and the wider family of choosing and gathering. English took the word in the late 1300s by way of Old French college, at first meaning any organised group such as a guild or a community of clergy or scholars, which is why we still speak of a college of cardinals or an electoral college. The narrowing to a place of higher learning grew out of medieval universities, where students and teachers lived together in such corporate bodies. The double 'l' and the soft '-ege' ending both survive straight from the Latin spelling, and that quiet final '-ege' (sounding like a relaxed '-ij') is the main spot where writers stumble.

How the word is built

• col- (together, from com-)
• leg (choose/gather, from legare)
• -e (noun ending)