The Electoral College is not a college in any sense I’m familiar with. Are there any other examples of ‘college’ being used in this way?

OED definition:

An organized society of persons performing certain common functions and possessing special rights and privileges; a body of colleagues, a guild, fellowship, association

Examples: college of cardinals, college of physicians

Use of electoral college predates the United States constitution. It’s first use was in the late seventeenth century to describe the body of prince-electors who chose the Holy Roman Emperor.

Use of electoral college predates the United States constitution.

And the phrase is not, in fact, used in the US constitution.

So it isn’t. I just assumed it was. Wikipedia says early nineteenth century for the use of electoral college in a US context, but doesn’t provide anything specific.

I can’t find any eighteenth century uses of electoral college in a US context in Eighteenth Century Collections Online. I tried Google Books, but there are so many misdated books that I gave up looking.

Thanks, all. I was not aware of all that.

Webster’s dictionary (1828), accessible on-line at onelook.com, gives a very extensive list of meanings for “college”. The only US usages specifically mentioned, however, are “college of physicians” and “college of surgeons”. The same goes for Webster 1913 (available at the same invaluable website) - nothing about any US electoral college (though Webster 1828 does mention the college of Imperial Electors, which by 1828 had passed into history).