Academy, a society of learned persons formed to encourage and promote arts and sciences or some branch of the arts or sciences. (Academy also may mean a secondary school or an institution of higher learning, such as a military academy or an academy of art or music, but that meaning will not be considered in this article.) A learned society may be known as an academy, society, association, or institute. A professional association is a learned society and is sometimes called an academy. More often, however, an academy is an honorary society with a rather broad field of scholarly interest, with membership by invitation only.