1. an endowed, self-governing community of scholars: from the thirteenth to the nineteenth century a religious community dedicated to learning and worship; from the nineteenth century on a secular community dedicated to education, learning and research, though religion still plays an important role in many, especially the older colleges; 2. the buildings, comprising at least a dining-hall, student rooms, a library (at least by the sixteenth century), and in all the older, and some of the modern, colleges, a chapel.
