facile

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“
Rien de plus facile, as mamma says.

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Definitions (14)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (5)

  1. adjective Done or achieved with little effort or difficulty; easy. See Synonyms at easy.
  2. adjective Working, acting, or speaking with effortless ease and fluency.
  3. adjective Arrived at without due care, effort, or examination; superficial: proposed a facile solution to a complex problem.
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Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (5)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (1)

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Examples (50)

  • I was facile, and a very quick study; and I had buried all the equivalents to Ally's pains and travails. —  Omni: October 1993
  • He has disappeared It was too facile, and all circumstance. —  EQMM, Sep - Oct 2006
  • In cases where the approving editor is more wiki-facile, I imagine these would not come up. —  Citizendium, the Citizens' Compendium - Recent changes [en]
  • My only problem with Kauffman is that he tends to literalize metaphors in a very facile, almost sophomoric way. —  Bright Lights After Dark
  • But if that connection is as facile -- as uncomplicated -- as evolutionary psychologists would have it, we would have long ago plumbed the shallows of the human psyche that would imply. —  Thoughts in a Haystack
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Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Allen's Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms

Used in the same context Used in the Same Context

fluent ·  vivacious ·  witty ·  versatile ·  lively ·  persuasive ·  genial ·  superficial ·  childish ·  easy ·  plausible ·  docile
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (2)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

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

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. from F. facile = Spanish Portuguese facil = Italian facile, from Latin facilis (archaic facil, adverb facul), easy to do, easy, literally doable, from facere, do, make: see fact. Cf. difficile, difficult.
 

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/ˈfæsɪl/
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