College \Col"lege\, n. [F. coll[`e]ge, L. collegium, fr. collega colleague. See Colleague.]

1. 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. --Shak.

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. --Jer. Taylor.

2. 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.

Note: In France and some other parts of continental Europe, college is used to include schools occupied with rudimentary studies, and receiving children as pupils.

3. A building, or number of buildings, used by a college. ``The gate of Trinity College.'' --Macaulay.

4. Fig.: A community. [R.]

Thick as the college of the bees in May. --Dryden.

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.

Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)