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Webster 1913 Edition


Facility

Fa-cil′i-ty

(fȧ-sĭl′ĭ-ty̆)
,
Noun.
;
pl.
Facilities
(fȧ-sĭl′ĭ-tĭz)
.
[L.
facilitas
, fr.
facilis
easy: cf. F.
facilité
. See
Facile
.]
1.
The quality of being easily performed; freedom from difficulty; ease;
as, the
facility
of an operation
.
The
facility
with which government has been overturned in France.
Burke.
2.
Ease in performance; readiness proceeding from skill or use; dexterity;
as, practice gives a wonderful
facility
in executing works of art
.
3.
Easiness to be persuaded; readiness or compliance; – usually in a bad sense; pliancy.
It is a great error to take
facility
for good nature.
L’Estrange.
4.
Easiness of access; complaisance; affability.
Offers himself to the visits of a friend with
facility
.
South.
Syn. – Ease; expertness; readiness; dexterity; complaisance; condescension; affability.
Facility
,
Expertness
,
Readiness
. These words have in common the idea of performing any act with ease and promptitude. Facility supposes a natural or acquired power of dispatching a task with lightness and ease. Expertness is the kind of facility acquired by long practice. Readiness marks the promptitude with which anything is done. A merchant needs great facility in dispatching business; a banker, great expertness in casting accounts; both need great readiness in passing from one employment to another. “The facility which we get of doing things by a custom of doing, makes them often pass in us without our notice.”
Locke.
“The army was celebrated for the expertness and valor of the soldiers.” “A readiness to obey the known will of God is the surest means to enlighten the mind in respect to duty.”

Webster 1828 Edition


Facility

FACIL'ITY

,
Noun.
[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.
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 great error to take facility for good nature: tenderness without discretion, is no better than a more pardonable folly.
4.
Easiness of access; complaisance; condescension; affability.
He offers himself to the visits of a friend with facility.

Definition 2024


facility

facility

English

Noun

facility (plural facilities)

  1. The fact of being easy, or easily done; absence of difficulty, simplicity. [from 16th c.]
  2. Dexterity of speech or action; skill, talent. [from 16th c.]
    The facility she shows in playing the violin is unrivalled.
  3. The physical means or contrivances to make something (especially a public service) possible; the required equipment, infrastructure, location etc. [from 19th c.]
    Transport facilities in Bangkok are not sufficient to prevent frequent traffic collapses during rush hour.
    • 2006, Edwin Black, chapter 1, in Internal Combustion:
      As though on an incendiary rampage, the fires systematically devoured the contents of Edison's headquarters and facilities.
  4. (Canada, US, in the plural) A toilet. [from 20th c.]

Derived terms

Translations