Adjective: facile
Comparison Forms
Synthetic
Perifrastic
| Comparative | more facile |
| Superlative | most facile |
Sample Sentences
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[…] as he that is benummed with cold, sits still shaking, that might relieve himselfe with a little exercise or stirring, doe they complaine, but will not use the facile and ready meanes to doe themselves good; […] [1638, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy. […], 5th edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] [Robert Young, Miles Flesher, and Leonard Lichfield and William Turner] for Henry Cripps, →OCLC, page 85:]
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His facile disposition made him many friends.
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Her writing was facile and articulate.
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we can learn the impression that he made upon a stranger and a foreigner at this period, thanks to the facile pen of Fannu Burney. [1932, Duff Cooper, Talleyrand, Folio Society, published 2010, page 54:]
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The centenary of Bradshaw has proved further scope in the railway field for his facile pen to be devoted to an officially-sponsored work, and the "most famous guide in the world" is fortunate in its choice of a biographer. [1940 July, “Railway Literature: The History of Bradshaw. By G. Royde Smith. London: Henry Blacklock & Co., Bradshaw House, Surrey Street, Strand, W.C.2; … 76pp. Illustrated. Price 3s. 6d. net.”, in Railway Magazine, page 432:]
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"Discipline," Jorge Julio Saavedra was repeating, "is more necessary to me than to other more facile writers. [1974, Graham Greene, The Honorary Consul, New York: Pocket Books, page 54:]
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A facile and persuasive writer, he also turned out countless newspaper articles on Russian aims in Central Asia and how best these could be thwarted. [1990, Peter Hopkirk, The Great Game, Folio Society, published 2010, page 372:]
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He arrived with a facile understanding of her works.
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There is a facile view that our green commitments – to tackling climate change, avoiding air and water pollution, protecting natural habitats – are an obstacle to growth. The message of the commodity markets is surely different. [2012 May 3, Chris Huhne, “It's green growth or nothing”, in The Guardian:]
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Decarboxylation of beta-keto acids is facile.
Adjectives inflected like facile
priest-ridden,
unreposed,
evadible,
dissentious,
dissentient,
unforesighted,
egocentrical,
unephemeral,
unennobling,
mensuralist,
flocculent,
unseductive,
whoopsy,
whooshy,
surrogate,
Nicodian,
unrepaired,
prismatoidal,
renorenal,
unseducible, etc. (List truncated at 20 adjectives)
Etymology
Borrowed from Middle French facile, from Latin facilis (“easy to do, easy, doable”), from Latin facere (“to do, make”), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰeh₁- (“to do, put”) Compare Spanish and Portuguese fácil (“easy”), Catalan fàcil, Romanian facil. First use appears c. 1484 in a translation by William Caxton. See: Latin Adjectives '
facilis', Portuguese Adjectives '
fácil', Catalan Adjectives '
fàcil', Romanian Adjectives '
facil'.
Verbs referencing "facile"
Spanish Adjectives
fácil.