academy

noun9

1. •
   a school where students are trained in one particular art or kind of work
2. •
   An institution for the study of higher learning; a college or a university; typically a private school.

   • The artists of London had long maintained a private academy for improvement in the art of drawing from living figures — 1760
3. •
   (UK) A school directly funded by central government, independent of local control; a charter school.
4. •
   A society of learned people united for the advancement of the arts and sciences, and literature, or some particular art or science.

   • the French Academy; the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; academies of literature and philology
5. •
   Academia.
6. •
   The garden where Plato taught.
7. •
   A body of established opinion in a particular field, regarded as authoritative.
8. •
   Plato's philosophical system based on skepticism; Plato's followers.
9. •
   (no longer used) The knowledge disseminated in an Academy.