Word of the Week – University

Since last week we looked at college, this week it’s only fair that we examine the history of the word university.

While college dated from the late 1300s, university actually joined the English language almost a century earlier, right around the year 1300. And, get this, it meant the same thing it means today, “institution of higher learning.” I’m always a little bit amazed when things haven’t changed in meaning after all this time… But of course, there are still some interesting things to look at!

Namely, have you ever noticed how similar universe and university are? Yeah, that’s not a coincidence. University does indeed come from the Latin universus, meaning “whole, entire,” which was used both for the universe itself and also for all of society or, more narrowly, for a corporation or whole of a group.

So how did it come to be applied specifically to an institution of higher learning? Well, simple. It’s a shortening of a phrase. 😉 The actual phrase was universitas magistrorum et scholarium, meaning “community of masters and scholars.” Guess that was just too much of a mouthful. 😉

And English and French are far from the only languages that use this same idea! Spanish has universidad, German has universität, and Russian has universitet.