Faculty, n.; pl. Faculties.
Etymology: [F. facult, L. facultas, fr. facilis easy (cf. facul easily), fr. fecere to make. See Fact, and cf. Facility.]
1. Ability to act or perform, whether inborn or cultivated; capacity for any natural function; especially, an original mental power or capacity for any of the well-known classes of mental activity; psychical or soul capacity; capacity for any of the leading kinds of soul activity, as knowledge, feeling, volition; intellectual endowment or gift; power; as, faculties of the mind or the soul. But know that in the soul Are many lesser faculties that serve Reason as chief. Milton. What a piece of work is a man ! how noble in reason ! how infinite in faculty ! Shak.
2. Special mental endowment; characteristic knack. He had a ready faculty, indeed, of escaping from any topic that agitated his too sensitive and nervous temperament. Hawthorne.
3. Power; prerogative or attribute of office. [R.] This Duncan Hath borne his faculties so meek. Shak.
4. Privilege or permission, granted by favor or indulgence, to do a particular thing; authority; license; dispensation. The pope . . . granted him a faculty to set him free from his promise. Fuller. It had not only faculty to inspect all bishops' dioceses, but to change what laws and statutes they should think fit to alter among the colleges. Evelyn.
4 more senses
5. A body of a men to whom any specific right or privilege is granted; formerly, the graduates in any of the four departments of a university or college (Philosophy, Law, Medicine, or Theology), to whom was granted the right of teaching (profitendi or docendi) in the department in which they had studied; at present, the members of a profession itself; as, the medical faculty; the legal faculty, ect.
6. (Amer. Colleges)
The body of person to whom are intrusted the government and instruction of a college or university, or of one of its departments; the president, professors, and tutors in a college. Dean of faculty. See under Dean. -- Faculty of advocates. (Scot.) See under Advocate.
Syn. -- Talent; gift; endowment; dexterity; expertness; cleverness; readiness; ability; knack.
Shades of meaning
Fernald has no entry of its own for faculty; he lists it under power.
Where he writes about it:
Power is the most general term of this group, including every quality, property, or faculty by which any change, effect, or result is, or may be, produced; as, the power of the legislature to enact laws, or of the executive to enforce them; the power of an acid to corrode a metal; the power of a polished surface to reflect light. — from power
Faculty is an inherent quality of mind or body; talent, some special mental ability. — from power