facility

From Middle French facilité, and its source, Latin facilitās. Doublet of faculty. Also see facile.

• IPA^(key): /fəˈsɪlɪti/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪlɪti

facility (countable and uncountable, plural facilities)

1. The fact of being easy, or easily done; absence of difficulty; simplicity. [from 16th c.]
   • 1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 12, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book II, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], →OCLC:

     Clytomachus affirmed, that he could never understand by the writings of Carneades, what opinion he was of. Why hath Epicurus interdicted facility unto his Sectaries?

   • 1964, Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, →OCLC, page 151:

     Since I had started to break down all my writing and get rid of all facility and try to make instead of describe, writing had been wonderful to do. But it was very difficult, and I did not know how I would ever write anything as long as a novel. It often took me a full morning of work to write a paragraph.

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. An institution specially designed for a specific purpose, such as incarceration, military use, or scientific experimentation.
5. (finance, banking) Clipping of credit facility.
6. (Canada, US, in the plural) A toilet. [from 20th c.]
7. (Scots law) A condition of mental weakness less than idiocy, but enough to make a person easily persuaded to do something against their better interest.
8. (dated) Affability.