A functor $F\colon \mathcal{C}\to \mathcal{D}$ is fully faithful if $F$ is full and faithful, i.e. if, for each $A,B\in \operatorname {\mathrm{Obj}}(\mathcal{C})$, the action on morphisms
of $F$ at $(A,B)$ is bijective.
Let $\mathcal{C}$ and $\mathcal{D}$ be categories.
A functor $F\colon \mathcal{C}\to \mathcal{D}$ is fully faithful if $F$ is full and faithful, i.e. if, for each $A,B\in \operatorname {\mathrm{Obj}}(\mathcal{C})$, the action on morphisms
of $F$ at $(A,B)$ is bijective.
Let $F\colon \mathcal{C}\to \mathcal{D}$ and $G\colon \mathcal{D}\to \mathcal{E}$ be functors.
Characterisations. The following conditions are equivalent:
The functor $F$ is fully faithful.
We have a pullback square
Interaction With Composition. If $F$ and $G$ are fully faithful, then so is $G\circ F$.
Conservativity. If $F$ is fully faithful, then $F$ is conservative.
Essential Injectivity. If $F$ is fully faithful, then $F$ is essentially injective.
Interaction With Co/Limits. If $F$ is fully faithful, then $F$ reflects co/limits.
Interaction With Postcomposition. The following conditions are equivalent:
The functor $F\colon \mathcal{C}\to \mathcal{D}$ is fully faithful.
For each $\mathcal{X}\in \operatorname {\mathrm{Obj}}(\mathsf{Cats})$, the postcomposition functor
is fully faithful.
The functor $F\colon \mathcal{C}\to \mathcal{D}$ is a representably fully faithful morphism in $\mathsf{Cats}_{\mathsf{2}}$ in the sense of Chapter 14: Types of Morphisms in Bicategories, Definition 14.1.3.1.1.
Interaction With Precomposition I. If $F$ is fully faithful, then the precomposition functor
can fail to be fully faithful.
Interaction With Precomposition II. If the precomposition functor
is fully faithful, then $F$ can fail to be fully faithful (and in fact it can also fail to be either full or faithful).
Interaction With Precomposition III. If $F$ is essentially surjective and full, then the precomposition functor
is fully faithful.
Interaction With Precomposition IV. The following conditions are equivalent:
For each $\mathcal{X}\in \operatorname {\mathrm{Obj}}(\mathsf{Cats})$, the precomposition functor
is fully faithful.
The precomposition functor
is fully faithful.
The functor
is fully faithful.
The functor $F$ is a corepresentably fully faithful morphism in $\mathsf{Cats}_{\mathsf{2}}$ in the sense of Chapter 14: Types of Morphisms in Bicategories, Definition 14.2.3.1.1.
The functor $F$ is absolutely dense.
The components
of the unit
of the adjunction $F^{*}\dashv \operatorname {\mathrm{Ran}}_{F}$ are all isomorphisms.
The components
of the counit
of the adjunction $\operatorname {\mathrm{Lan}}_{F}\dashv F^{*}$ are all isomorphisms.
The natural transformation
with components
given by
is a natural isomorphism.
For each $B\in \operatorname {\mathrm{Obj}}(\mathcal{D})$, there exist:
An object $A_{B}$ of $\mathcal{C}$;
A morphism $s_{B}\colon B\to F(A_{B})$ of $\mathcal{D}$;
A morphism $r_{B}\colon F(A_{B})\to B$ of $\mathcal{D}$;
satisfying the following conditions:
The triple $(F(A_{B}),r_{B},s_{B})$ is a retract of $B$, i.e. we have $r_{B}\circ s_{B}=\operatorname {\mathrm{id}}_{B}$.
For each morphism $f\colon B'\to B$ of $\mathcal{D}$, we have
in $\int ^{A\in \mathcal{C}}h^{B'}_{F_{A}}\times h^{F_{A}}_{B}$.
defined as the composition
is a composition of bijective functions, it follows from that it is also bijective. Therefore $G\circ F$ is fully faithful.
Item 10a and Item 10d Are Equivalent: This is true by the definition of corepresentably fully faithful morphism; see Chapter 14: Types of Morphisms in Bicategories, Definition 14.2.3.1.1.
Item 10a, Item 10b, and Item 10c Are Equivalent: This follows from Proposition A.1.5 of [Low, Notes on Homotopical Algebra].
Item 10a, Item 10e, Item 10h, and Item 10i Are Equivalent: See Theorem 4.1 of [Frey, On the 2-Categorical Duals of (Full and) Faithful Functors] and Theorem 1.1 of [AESV, On Functors Which Are Lax Epimorphisms].
This finishes the proof.