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Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. adj. Done or achieved with little effort or difficulty; easy. See Synonyms at easy.
  2. adj. Working, acting, or speaking with effortless ease and fluency.
  3. adj. Arrived at without due care, effort, or examination; superficial: proposed a facile solution to a complex problem.
  4. adj. Readily manifested, together with an aura of insincerity and lack of depth: a facile slogan devised by politicians.
  5. adj. Archaic Pleasingly mild, as in disposition or manner.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. Easy to be done, performed, or used; easy; not difficult.
  2. Easy to be moved, removed, surmounted, or overcome.
  3. Easy of access or converse; affable; not haughty, austere, or reserved.
  4. Easily moved or persuaded to good or bad; pliable; flexible; yielding.
  5. Ready; quick; dexterous: as, a facile artisan or artist; he wields a facile pen.

Wiktionary

  1. adj. Easy.
  2. adj. Easy specifically in a disparaging sense; taking minimal effort; lazy, simplistic.
  3. adj. Amiable, flexible, easy to get along with.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. adj. Easy to be done or performed: not difficult; performable or attainable with little labor.
  2. adj. Easy to be surmounted or removed; easily conquerable; readily mastered.
  3. adj. Easy of access or converse; mild; courteous; not haughty, austere, or distant; affable; complaisant.
  4. adj. Easily persuaded to good or bad; yielding; ductile to a fault; pliant; flexible.
  5. adj. Ready; quick; expert.

WordNet 3.0

  1. adj. arrived at without due care or effort; lacking depth
  2. adj. performing adroitly and without effort
  3. adj. expressing yourself readily, clearly, effectively

Etymologies

  1. Middle English, from Old French, from Latin facilis; see dhē- in Indo-European roots.

Examples

  • “Leisure time is being stolen from us, language is degraded and commercialized in facile ways, and anything made for “serious human ends” is rendered irrelevant.”

    Poets Forum (Part 1) : Ange Mlinko : Harriet the Blog : The Poetry Foundation

  • “Even as they immerse themselves in facile debates about the Boy King's "A-list", it could have a material effect on their electoral prospects.”

    Talking about them… talking about themselves

  • “Brissot became known as a facile and able writer, and was engaged on the”

    Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 "Brescia" to "Bulgaria"

  • “The learned and ingenious John Schweighaeuser (a name facile to spell and mellifluous to pronounce) hath been pleased, in that Appendix continens particulam doctrinae de mente humana, which closeth the volume of his "Opuscula Academica," to observe (we translate from memory) that,”

    Paul Clifford — Complete

  • “The learned and ingenious John Schweighaeuser (a name facile to spell and mellifluous to pronounce) hath been pleased, in that _Appendix continens particulam doctrinae de mente humana_, which closeth the volume of his”

    Paul Clifford — Volume 02

  • “I’m torn between not wanting to speak ill of a fellow Guinness drinker and pointing out how utterly facile is your view of the connection between lobbyists and government.”

    Newt Gingrich Answers Your Questions - Freakonomics Blog - NYTimes.com

  • “Il se fait que le mot “écu” désignait les pièces d'or ou d'argent qui commencèrent à être utilisées sous le règne de Louis IX, en 1266, de sorte qu'il s'agissait d'une appellation facile à retenir pour les Français, lorsque ceux-ci apprirent qu'ils devraient renoncer à leur cher franc français.”

    Archive 2010-06-01

  • “So that class of women known as facile is unknown to me, or if I allow myself to be taken with them, it is without knowing it, and through innate simplicity.”

    The French Immortals Series — Complete

  • “He has what is called a facile pen, though it sometimes runs away with him.”

    "Marse Henry" : an autobiography,

  • “Arrived in Cincinnati, where he got employment in the Western Union commercial telegraph department at a wage of $60 per month, Edison made the acquaintance of Milton F. Adams, already referred to as facile princeps the typical telegrapher in all his more sociable and brilliant aspects.”

    Edison, His Life and Inventions, vol. 1

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  • Telofy I just found this word, twice underlined, on something that looks like an old physics homework with excursions into seemingly inscrutable calculations. Mysterious. Oct 25, 2009

‘facile’ has been looked up 2883 times, loved by 11 people, added to 85 lists, commented on 1 time, and has a Scrabble score of 11.