Etymology

university

u·ni·ver·si·ty
U1N1I1V4E1R1S1I1T1Y4

Today it means: An institution of higher education that provides facilities for teaching, research, and the conferral of academic degrees across undergraduate, graduate, and often professional levels. Full definition →

Middle English universite ← Anglo-Norman université ← Old French universitei
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The story

  1. Old French · derived fromuniversitei
  2. Anglo-Norman · derived fromuniversité
  3. Middle English · inherited fromuniversite“institution of higher learning, body of persons constituting a university”
  4. English todayuniversity

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.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.