Emily Dickinson Lexicon

FA-CIL'I-TATE, v.t. [Fr. faciliter, from facilité, L. facilitas, from facilis, easy.]

To make easy or less difficult; to free from difficulty or impediment, or to diminish it; to lessen the labor of. Machinery facilitates manual labor and operations. Pioneers may facilitate the march of an army.

FA-CIL'I-TA-TED, pp.

Made easy or easier.

FA-CIL'I-TA-TING, ppr.

Rendering easy or easier.

FA-CIL-I-TA'TION, n.

The act of making easy. Johnson.

FA-CIL'I-TIES, n. plur.

The means by which the performance of any thing is rendered easy; convenient opportunities or advantages.

FA-CIL'I-TY, n. [Fr. facilité; L. facilitas, from facilis, easy.]

1. Easiness to be performed; freedom from difficulty; ease. He performed the work or operation with great facility. Though facility and hope of success might invite some other choice. Bacon.
2. Ease of performance; readiness proceeding from skill or use; dexterity. Practice gives a wonderful facility in executing works of art.
3. Pliancy; ductility; easiness to be persuaded; readiness of compliance, usually in a bad sense, implying a disposition to yield to solicitations to evil. It Is a grant error to take facility for good nature: tenderness without discretion, is no better than a more pardonable folly. L'Estrange.
4. Easiness of access; complaisance; condescension; affability. He offers himself to the visits of a friend with facility. South.

FA'CING, n.

A covering in front for ornament or defense; as, the facing of a fortification or of a garment.

FA'CING, ppr. [from face.]

1. Fronting; having the face toward; opposite.
2. Covering the fore part.
3. Turning the face.

FA'CING-LY, adv.

In a fronting position.

FA-CIN'O-ROUS, a. [L. facinus.]

Atrociously wicked. [Little used.] Shak.

FA-CIN'O-ROUS-NESS, n.

Extreme or atrocious wickedness.

FAC-SIM'I-LE, n. [L. facio, to make, and similis, like. See Simile.]

An exact copy or likeness, as of handwriting.

FACT, n. [L. factum, from facio, to make or do; Fr. fait; It. fatto; Sp. hecho.]

1. Any thing done, or that comes to pass; an act; a deed; an effect produced or achieved; an event. Witnesses are introduced into court to prove a fact. Facts are stubborn things. To deny a fact knowingly is to lie.
2. Reality; truth; as, in fact. So we say, indeed.

FAC'TION, n. [Fr. from L. factio, from facio, to make or do.]

1. A party, in political society, combined or acting in union, in opposition to the prince, government or state; usually applied to a minority, but it may be applied to a majority. Sometimes a state is divided into factions nearly equal. Rome was almost always disturbed by factions. Republics are proverbial for factions, and factions in monarchies have often effected revolutions. A feeble government produces more factions than an oppressive one. – Aines. By a faction, I understand a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community. – Federalist, Madison.
2. Tumult; discord; dissension. – Clarendon.

FAC'TION-A-RY, n.

A party man; one of a faction. [Little used.] – Shak.

FAC'TION-ER, n.

One of a faction. [Not in use.] – Bancroft.

FAC'TION-IST, n.

One who promotes faction. – Mountagu.

FAC'TIOUS, a. [Fr. factieux; L. factiosus.]

1. Given to faction; addicted to form parties and raise dissensions, in opposition to government; turbulent; prone to clamor against public measures or men. No state is free from factious citizens.
2. Pertaining to faction; proceeding from faction; as factious tumults; factious quarrels. – Dryden.

FAC'TIOUS-LY, adv.

In a factious manner; by means of faction; in a turbulent or disorderly manner.

FAC'TIOUS-NESS, n.

Inclination to form parties in opposition to the government, or to the public interest; disposition to clamor and raise opposition; clamorousness for a party.

FAC-TI'TIOUS, a. [L. factitius, from facio.]

Made by art, in distinction from what is produced by nature; artificial; as, factitious cinnabar; factitious stones; factitious air.

FAC-TI'TIOUS-LY, adv.

In an artificial manner.

FAC'TIVE, a.

Making; having power to make. [Not used.] – Bacon.

FAC'TOR, n. [L. factor; Fr. facteur; It. fattore; from L. facio.]

1. In commerce, an agent employed by merchants, residing in other places, to buy and sell, and to negotiate bills of exchange, or to transact other business on their account.
2. An agent; a substitute.
3. In arithmetic, the multiplier and multiplicand, from the multiplication of which proceeds the product.

FAC'TOR-AGE, n.

The allowance given to a factor by his employer, as a compensation for his services; called also a commission. This is sometimes a certain sum or rate by the cask or package; more generally it is a certain rate per cent of the value of the goods purchased or sold.