university
UK /junɪˈvɜːsəti/ · US /ˌjunəˈvərsədi/ noun
Forms universities
- noun An institution of higher education that provides facilities for teaching, research, and the conferral of academic degrees across undergraduate, graduate, and often professional levels. “She's studying mathematics at university.”
- noun (obsolete) The entirety of a group; all members of a class.
Synonyms
Etymology
From Middle English universite (“institution of higher learning, body of persons constituting a university”) from Anglo-Norman université, from Old French universitei, from Medieval Latin stem of universitas, in juridical and Late Latin "a number of persons associated into one body, a society, company, community, guild, corporation, etc"; in Latin, "the whole, aggregate," from universus (“whole, entire”). By surface analysis, universe + -ity.
Webster’s 1913
- noun The universe; the whole. [Obs.] Dr. H. More.
- noun An association, society, guild, or corporation, esp. one capable of having and acquiring property. [Obs.]
Etymology [OE. universite, L. universitas all together, the whole, the universe, a number of persons associated into one body, a society, corporation, fr. universus all together, universal: cf. F. université. See Universe.]
Sources: Wiktionary · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “university”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details