facies

See also: facíes and faciès

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin faciēs (“form, configuration, figure; face, visage, countenance”). Doublet of face.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈfeɪ.ʃi.iːz/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈfeɪ.ʃiˌiz/, /ˈfeɪ.ʃiz/
• Rhymes: -eɪʃiiːz, -eɪʃiːz

Noun

facies (countable and uncountable, plural facies)

1. General appearance.
   • 1992, Rudolf M[athias] Schuster, The Hepaticae and Anthocerotae of North America: East of the Hundredth Meridian, volume V, Chicago, Ill.: Field Museum of Natural History, →ISBN, page 6:

     The Chilean Amphijubula Schust. (Schuster, 1970a) which has the facies of a small Frullania and agrees with Frullania in leaf insertion and branching, has a nontiered seta with 16 epidermal cell rows surrounding 4 inner rows.

2. (medicine) Facial features, like an expression or complexion, typical for patients having certain diseases or conditions.

   Hyponyms: masked facies, moon facies

   costive facies

3. (geology) A body of rock with specified characteristics reflecting its formation, composition, age, and fossil content.

   Hyponyms: biofacies, lithofacies, microfacies, ichnofacies, taphofacies

Derived terms

• facies Hippocratica
• Williams elfin facies syndrome

 

References

• “facies”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
• “facies”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.

Anagrams

• Scaife

Latin

Alternative forms

• facia (late)

Etymology

From Proto-Italic *fakjēs of disputed origin. It may be from Proto-Indo-European *dʰeh₁- (“to do, set, put, impose, place”); faciēs may be to faciō as speciēs is to speciō, and may literally mean "imposed form". However, others class it with facētus and fax.

Pronunciation

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): /ˈfa.ki.eːs/, [ˈfäkieːs̠]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈfa.t͡ʃi.es/, [ˈfäːt͡ʃies]

Noun

faciēs f (genitive faciēī); fifth declension

1. (in general) make, form, shape, figure, configuration

   Synonyms: speciēs, frōns, fōrma, habitus

   • 29 BCE – 19 BCE, Virgil, Aeneid 12.891:

     verte omnes tete in facies

     resort to every expedient

     (literally, “change yourself in every shape”)

2. (usually Classical Latin) (in particular) face, countenance, visage
   • 405 CE, Jerome, Vulgate Genesis.1.2:

     Terra autem erat inānis et vacua, et tenebrae erant super faciem abyssī: et spīritus Deī ferēbātur super aquās.

     And the earth was void and empty, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the spirit of God moved over the waters.

3. (figuratively, Classical Latin) external form, look, condition, appearance

   in faciem + (genitive) ― like, in the guise of

   1. (in particular) external appearance as opposed to reality; pretence, pretext
   2. (transferred sense, poetic) look, sight, aspect

   Synonym: speciēs

4. beauty, loveliness

   Synonyms: pulchritūdō, decus, decor

   Antonyms: dēdecus, dehonestāmentum

Inflection

Fifth-declension noun.

	singular	plural
nominative	faciēs	faciēs
genitive	faciēī	faciērum
dative	faciēī	faciēbus
accusative	faciem	faciēs
ablative	faciē	faciēbus
vocative	faciēs	faciēs

Old Genitive: faciēs

Gellius: vocabulum facies hoc modo declinatur: "haec facies, huius facies", quod nunc propter rationem grammaticam "faciei" dicitur

Derived terms

• bonifaciēs
• facitergium
• superficiēs

Descendants

• Italo-Romance:
  • Sicilian: facci
• Insular Romance:
  • Sardinian: fache, facci (Campidanese, still meaning "face")
• Gallo-Romance:
  • Catalan: faç
  • Old Occitan: fatz
• Ibero-Romance
  • Extremaduran: hazi
  • Mozarabic: ڢاج (fāja)
  • Old Galician-Portuguese: façe, faz
    • Galician: face
    • Portuguese: face
  • Old Spanish: faz
    • Spanish: haz, faz
• Borrowings:
  • → English: facies
  • → French: faciès
  • → Portuguese: fácies
  • → Spanish: facies

Reflexes of the late variant facia:

• Balkan Romance:
  • Aromanian: fatsã
  • Romanian: față
• Italo-Romance:
  • Italian: faccia (see there for further descendants)
• North Italian:
  • Gallo-Italic:
    • Lombard: fassa
    • Piedmontese: fassa, fàssia
    • Romagnol: fàza
  • Venetan: fazza, faça, fasa (see there for further descendants)
  • Friulian: face
  • Romansch: fatscha
• Gallo-Romance:
  • Occitan: fàcia
  • Old French: face, fache (northern)
    • Middle French: face
      • French: face
    • Norman: fache, fach (Sark)
    • → Middle English: face (see there for further descendants)
• Borrowings:
  • → Albanian: faqe

Verb

faciēs

1. second-person singular future active indicative of faciō

References

• Walther von Wartburg (1928–2002) “facies”, in Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, volumes 3: D–F, page 355

Further reading

• “facies”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “facies”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• facies in Dizionario Latino, Olivetti
• facies in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
• facies in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.

Spanish

Etymology

Learned borrowing from Latin faciēs. Doublet of faz and haz.

Noun

facies f (plural facies)

1. facies

Further reading

• “facies”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.7, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 2023 November 28