college

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun An institution of higher learning that grants the bachelor's degree in liberal arts or science or both.
• noun An undergraduate division or school of a university offering courses and granting degrees in a particular field or group of fields.
• noun A junior or community college.
• noun A school offering special instruction in a professional or technical subject.
• noun The students, faculty, and administration of one of these schools or institutions.
• noun The building, buildings, or grounds where one of these schools or institutions is located.
• noun Chiefly British A self-governing society of scholars for study or instruction, incorporated within a university.
• noun An institution for secondary education in France and certain other countries that is not supported by the state.
• noun A body of persons having a common purpose or shared duties.
• noun An electoral college.
• noun A body of clerics living together on an endowment.

from The Century Dictionary.

• noun An organized association of men, invested with certain common powers and rights, performing certain related duties, or engaged in some common employment or pursuit; a body of colleagues; a guild; a corporation; a community: as, an ancient Roman college of priests; the college of cardinals; the Heralds' College in England; a college of physicians or surgeons.
• noun An endowed and incorporated community or association of students within a university. See university.
• noun The institution or house founded for the accommodation of such an association.
• noun In Scotland, the United States, and Canada, an incorporated and endowed institution of learning of the highest grade.
• noun A school or an academy of a high grade or of high pretensions.
• noun An edifice occupied by a college.
• noun In France, an institution for secondary education, controlled by the municipality, which pays for the instruction given there, and differing from the lyceum in that the latter is supported and directed by the state. The curriculum is nearly the same in both, the college being usually modeled on the lyceum.
• noun A collection or assembly; a company.
• noun A debtors' prison.
• noun The whole body of bishops of the historical church, regarded as continuing and possessing in their corporate capacity the authority of the original assembly of apostles.
• noun A church connected with a college.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• noun 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.
• noun A society of scholars or friends of learning, incorporated for study or instruction, esp. in the higher branches of knowledge.
• noun A building, or number of buildings, used by a college.
• noun rare Fig.: A community.
• noun a term applied in Scotland to the supreme civil courts and their principal officers.
• noun the college or cardinals at Rome.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• noun An institution of further education at an intermediate level (in the UK, typically teaching those aged 16 to 19); sixth form.
• noun An institution for adult education at a basic or intermediate level (teaching those of any age).
• noun UK, in the names of private schools A secondary school.
• noun A non-specialized, semi-autonomous division of a university, with its own faculty, departments, library, etc.
• noun Australia A residential hall associated with a university, which may be independent or have its own tutors but is not involved in teaching.
• noun loosely Any institution of higher education.
• noun US An institution of higher education teaching undergraduates and/or graduates. Nearly synonymous with university, with less emphasis on research and may, or may not, have graduate or doctoral programs.
• noun US, New Zealand A specialized division of a university.
• noun New Zealand A high school or secondary school.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• noun the body of faculty and students of a college
• noun an institution of higher education created to educate and grant degrees; often a part of a university
• noun a complex of buildings in which an institution of higher education is housed