Online Etymology Dictionary

college: late 14c., from O.Fr. collége, from L. collegium "community, society, guild," lit. "association of collegae" (see colleague). First meaning any corporate group, the sense of "academic institution" became principal in 19c. through Oxford and Cambridge, where it had been used since late 14c.
collegiate: 1514, from L. collegiatus "member of a college or corporation," in M.L., "of or pertaining to a college," from collegium (see college).
Harvard: U.S. college named for John Harvard (1607-38), Puritan immigrant minister who bequeathed half his estate and 260 books to the yet-unorganized college that had been ordered by the Massachusetts colonial government. The surname is cognate with Hereward, O.E. hereweard, lit. "army guard."
joe: "coffee," 1941, of unknown origin. Meaning "generic fellow, man" is from 1846, from the pet-form of Joseph (q.v.). Joe college "typical college man" is from 1932. Joe Blow "average fellow" is U.S. military slang, first recorded 1941.
collegian (n.): 1462, from college.
dweeb: 1968, U.S. college student slang, probably a variant of feeb "feeble person."
blazer: "bright-colored jacket," 1880, British university slang, from blaze (1), in reference to the red flannel jackets worn by the Lady Margaret, St. John College, Cambridge boating club.
beef up (v.): "add strength," 1941, from college slang, from beef (n.) in slang sense of "muscle-power" (1851).
rah: in cheers, 1870, a shortening of hurrah. Adjective rah-rah is attested from 1914, originally indicating college life generally, later enthusiastic cheerleading.
Dewey Decimal system: proposed 1876 by Melvil Dewey (1851-1931) while acting librarian of Amherst College. He also crusaded for simplified spelling and the metric system.
Eton: collar (1887), jacket (1881, formerly worn by the younger boys there), etc., from Eton College, public school for boys on the Thames opposite Windsor, founded by Henry VI.
-er (3): suffix used to make jocular or familiar formations from common or proper names, first attested 1860s, English schoolboy slang, "Introduced from Rugby School into Oxford University slang, orig. at University College, in Michaelmas Term, 1875" [OED, with unusual precision].
spoonerism: 1900, but perhaps as early as 1885, involuntary transposition of sounds in two or more words (cf. "a well-boiled icicle" for "a well-oiled bicycle;" "scoop of boy trouts" for "troop of Boy Scouts"), in allusion to the Rev. William A. Spooner (1844-1930), warden of New College, Oxford, who was famous for such mistakes.
sexist: 1965, on model of racist, coined by Pauline M. Leet, director of special programs at Franklin & Marshall College, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, U.S., in a speech which was circulated in mimeograph among feminists. Popularized by use in print in Caroline Bird's introduction to "Born Female" (1968).
yeshiva: "Orthodox Jewish college or seminary," 1851, from Heb. yesibah "academy," lit. "a sitting," from yashav "to sit."
bent (1): "mental inclination," 1580, from the adj., "not straight" (late 14c.), originally pp. of bend. The verb meaning "directed in a course" is from 1697. Phrase bent out of shape "extremely upset" is 1960s Air Force and college student slang.
Sorbonne: 1560, from Sorbon, place name in the Ardennes. Theological college in Paris founded early 13c. by Robert de Sorbon (b.1201), chaplain and confessor of Louis IX.
Rhemish: "of or pertaining to Rheims (earlier Eng. Rhemes), city in n.e. France, 1589; specifically in ref. to an English translation of the N.T. by Roman Catholics at the English college there, published 1582.
flunk: 1823, Amer.Eng. college slang, original meaning "to back out, give up, fail," traditionally said to be an alteration of British university slang funk "to be frightened, shrink from" (see funk (1)).
sorority: 1532, "body of women united for some purpose," from M.L. sororitas "sisterhood, of or pertaining to sisters," from L. soror "sister" (see sister). OED 2nd ed. lists first reference for sense of "women's society in a college or university" as c.1900, but they existed at least 20 years before this.
crud: "nonsense, rubbish," 1940, U.S. slang; originally 1920s army and college student slang for "venereal disease." Said to be a metathesis variant of curd, which actually makes it an unconscious return to the original M.E. form of that word (see curd). As G.I. name for "disease of any and every sort" it is attested from 1945.
madrasah: Islamic college, 1622, from Arabic madrasah, lit. "a place of study," from loc. prefix ma- + stem of darasa "he read repeatedly, he studied."
stunt (n.): "feat to attract attention," 1878, Amer.Eng. college sports slang, of uncertain origin. Speculated to be a variant of colloq. stump "dare, challenge" (1871), or of Ger. stunde, lit. "hour." The movie stunt man is attested from 1930.
zilch: "nothing," 1966, from earlier sense of "meaningless speech" (1960), originally Mr. Zilch, (1931) comic character in the magazine "Ballyhoo." Perhaps from U.S. college slang (early 1900s) Joe Zilsch "an insignificant person." Probably a nonsense syllable, but Zilch is an actual Ger. surname of Slavic origin.
pizazz: 1937, probably originally college or show-biz slang.
"Pizazz, to quote the editor of the Harvard Lampoon, is an indefinable dynamic quality, the je ne sais quoi of function; as for instance, adding Scotch puts pizazz into a drink. Certain clothes have it, too." ["Harper's Bazaar," March 1937]
fizzle: c.1532, "to break wind without noise," probably altered from obsolete fist, from M.E. fisten "break wind" (see feisty). Sense of "failure, fiasco" is from 1846, originally U.S. college slang for "failure in an exam."
manciple: "officer or servant who purchases provisions for a college, monastery, etc.," early 13c., from L. mancipium, from manus "hand" (see manual) + root of capere "to take" (see capable).
dean: early 14c., from O.Fr. deien, from L.L. decanus "head of a group of 10 monks in a monastery," from earlier secular meaning "commander of 10 soldiers" (which was extended to civil administrators in the late empire), from Gk. dekanos, from deka "ten." Replaced O.E. teoðingealdor. College sense is from 1570s (in L. from 1271).
salutatorian: 1847, from salutatory (adj.), 1670, "of the nature of a salutation," in the specific sense "designating the welcoming address given at a college commencement" (1702, the address usually in Latin), from L. salutatorius "pertaining to visiting or greeting," from salut-, pp. stem of salutare "to greet" (see salute).
hick: 1376, nickname of Richard. Meaning "awkward provincial person" is first recorded 1565 (cf. rube). The adj. is first recorded 1920, in Sinclair Lewis' "Main Street": "He graduated from a hick college in Pennsylvania."
"A hick town is one where there is no place to go where you shouldn't be." [Robert Quillen, 1933]
Iron Curtain: in ref. to the Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe, famously coined by Churchill March 5, 1946, in speech at Westminster College, Fulton, Missouri, but it had been used earlier in this context (e.g. by U.S. bureaucrat Allen W. Dulles at a meeting of the Council on Foreign Relations, Dec. 3, 1945). The fig. sense of "impenetrable barrier" is attested from 1819, and the specific sense of "barrier at the edge of the sphere of influence of the Soviet Union" is recorded from 1920. During World War II, Goebbels used in in Ger. (ein eiserner Vorhang) in the same sense.
campus: 1774, from L. campus "a field," probably prop. "an expanse surrounded" (by woods, higher ground, etc.), from PIE *kampos "a corner, cove," from base *kamp- "to bend" (cf. Lith. kampus "corner," Pol. kepa "island in a river"). First used in college sense at Princeton.
bursar: "treasurer of a college," 1587, from Anglo-L. burser "treasurer," from M.L. bursarius "purse-bearer," from bursa (see purse).
foundation: c.1385, "action of founding," from L. fundationem (nom. fundatio) "a founding," from fundatus, pp. of fundare (see found (1)). The L. word is glossed in O.E. by staþol. Meaning "that which is founded" (a college, hospital, etc.) is from 1513; meaning "funds endowed" is c.1430. Sense of "solid base of a structure" is from 1494.
Americanism: 1781, in ref. to words or phrases distinct from British use, coined by John Witherspoon (1723–1794), president of Princeton College, from adj. form of America (q.v.) + -ism. (American English "English language as spoken in the United States" is first recorded 1806, in Webster.) Americanism in the patriotic sense "attachment to the U.S." is attested from 1797, first found in the writings of Thomas Jefferson.
quadrangle: c.1430, from O.Fr. quadrangle (13c.), from L.L. quadrangulum "four-sided figure," prop. neut. of L. adj. quadrangulus "having four quarters," from L. quattuor "four" (see four) + angulus "angle." The shortened form quad for "quadrangle of a college," is first recorded 1820 in Oxford slang.
rector: 1387, from L. rector "ruler, governor, guide," from rect-, pp. stem of regere "to rule, guide" (see regal). Used originally of Roman governors and God, by 18c. generally restricted to clergymen and college heads. Rectory first recorded 1448 as "the benefice held by a rector;" of his residence, first recorded 1849.
faculty: 1382, "ability, means, resources," from O.Fr. faculté, from L. facultatem (nom. facultas) "power, ability, wealth," from *facli-tat-s, from facilis (see facile). Academic sense was probably the earliest in Eng. (attested in Anglo-L. from 1184), on notion of "ability in knowledge." Originally each department was a faculty; the use in ref. to the whole teaching staff of a college dates from 1767.
latrine: c.1300, from L. latrina, contraction of lavatrina "washbasin, washroom," from lavatus, pp. of lavare "to wash" (see lave) + -trina, suffix denoting "workplace." Its reappearance in 1640s is probably a re-borrowing from Fr.; esp. of a privy of a camp, barracks, college, hospital, etc. Latrine rumor "baseless gossip" (of the kind that spreads in conversations in latrines) is military slang, first recorded 1918.
collegial: 1530, from Fr. collégial, from L. collegialis, from collegium (see college). Related: Collegiality (1887).
principal (adj.): late 13c., from O.Fr. principal (11c.), from L. principalis "first in importance," from princeps (see prince). The noun is c.1300 in the sense of "ruler;" mid-14c. in the sense of "money on which interest is paid;" 1827 as "person in charge of a public school," though meaning "head of a college or hall" was in English from mid-15c., and the basic sense of "chief, commander, ruler" is recorded from late 14c. Principally "in the first place, mainly" is from mid-14c.
babe: late 14c., short for baban (early 13c.), which probably is imitative of baby talk (cf. babble), however in many languages the cognate word means "old woman" (cf. Rus. babushka "grandmother," from baba "peasant woman"). Now mostly superseded by its dim. form baby. Used figuratively for "a childish person" from 1520s. Meaning "attractive young woman" is 1915, college slang; related babelicious first recorded 1991.
toga: 1600, from L. toga "cloak or mantle," related to tegere "to cover" (see stegosaurus). The outer garment of a Roman citizen in time of peace; toga prætexta had a broad purple border and was worn by children, magistrates, persons engaged in sacred rites, and later also emperors; toga virilis, the "toga of manhood," was assumed by boys at puberty. College fraternity toga party popularized by movie "Animal House" (1978), but this is set in 1962.
blog: 1998, short for weblog (which is attested from 1994, though not in the sense 'online journal'), from (World Wide) Web + log. Joe Bloggs (c.1969) was British slang for "any hypothetical person" (cf. U.S. equivalent Joe Blow); earlier it meant "a servant boy" in one of the college houses (c.1860, see Partridge, who describes this use as a "perversion of bloke"), and, as a verb, "to defeat" in schoolboy slang. The Blogger online publishing service was launched in 1999.
Columbia: poetic name for United States of America, earlier for the British colonies there, 1730s, also the nation's female personification, from name of Christopher Columbus (also see Colombia) with Latin "country" ending -ia. A popular name for places and institutions in the U.S. in the post-Revolutionary years, when former tributes to king and crown were out of fashion: e.g. Columbia University (New York, U.S.) founded in 1754 as King's College; re-named 1784. Also District of Columbia (1791, as Territory of Columbia); "Hail, Columbia" (1798).
junior: 1296, from L. junior, comp. of juvenis "young, young man" (see young). Used after a person's name to mean "the younger of two" from 1409 (in Anglo-L.). Abbreviation Jr. is attested from 1623. Meaning "of lesser standing, more recent" is from 1766. That of "meant for younger people, of smaller size" is from 1860. Junior college first attested 1899; junior high school is from 1909. Junior miss "young teenage girl" is from 1907.
random: "having no definite aim or purpose," 1650s, from at random (1560s), "at great speed" (thus, "carelessly, haphazardly"), alteration of M.E. randon "impetuosity, speed" (c.1300), from O.Fr. randon "rush, disorder, force, impetuosity," from randir "to run fast," from Frankish *rant "a running," from P.Gmc. *randa (cf. O.H.G. rennen "to run," O.E. rinnan "to flow, to run"). In 1980s college student slang, it began to acquire a sense of "inferior, undesirable." Random access in ref. to computer memory is recorded from 1953.
matriculate (v.): 1577, "to admit a student to a college by enrolling his name on the register," from M.L. *matriculare "to register," from L.L. matricula "public register," dim. of L. matrix (gen. matricis) "list, roll," also "sources, womb" (see matrix). The connection of senses in the L. word seems to be via confusion of Gk. metra "womb" (from meter "mother") and an identical Gk. word meaning "register, lot." Evidently L. matrix was used to translate both, though it originally only shared meaning with one.
technology: 1615, "discourse or treatise on an art or the arts," from Gk. tekhnologia "systematic treatment of an art, craft, or technique," originally referring to grammar, from tekhno- (see techno-) + -logia. The meaning "science of the mechanical and industrial arts" is first recorded 1859. High technology attested from 1964; short form high-tech is from 1972. Tech as a short form of Technical College (Institute, etc.) is Amer.Eng., attested from 1906.
throat: O.E. þrote (implied in þrotbolla "the Adam's apple, larynx," lit. "throat boll"), related to þrutian "to swell," from P.Gmc. *thrut- (cf. O.H.G. drozza, Ger. Drossel, O.S. strota, M.Du. strote, Du. strot "throat"), perhaps from PIE *trud- (cf. O.E. þrutian "to swell," O.N. þrutna "to swell"). The notion is of "the swollen part" of the neck. It. strozza "throat," strozzare "to strangle" are Gmc. loan-words. College slang for "competitive student" is 1970s, from cutthroat.