facility
Pluralfacilities
- 1A building or campus designed for a particular purpose, such as imprisonment, military operations, or scientific research.
Inmates are transferred to a higher-security facility after sentencing.
The testing facility houses several wind tunnels and a vibration lab.
UsageCommon with a purpose word in front: a research facility, a storage facility.
Similarinstitution, installation, center, complex, plant
- 2The equipment, infrastructure, location, and other physical means that make something possible, especially a public service.
The hospital offers facilities for both surgery and long-term care.
Every facility needed for the launch was already in place.
UsageUsually facilities: sports facilities, parking facilities, facilities for children.
- 3A polite or indirect term for a toilet, especially one in a public building.
Before the long bus ride, the driver reminded everyone to use the facilities at the rest stop.
Halfway through the movie, my little brother whispered that he needed to use the facilities.
UsageUsually use the facilities or ask where the facilities are.
- 4Short for credit facility: an arrangement under which a lender agrees to make money available to a borrower, up to a set limit, as needed.
The firm arranged a new facility with its lenders.
Drawing on the facility, the startup funded its expansion.
Note
Bankers shorten credit facility to the bare noun, and the shortened word keeps the whole agreement's meaning. A lender extends, renews or cancels a facility, and a borrower draws on it. The credit may be available on demand, like a line of credit, or released only once agreed conditions are met. A facility that is drawn down or repaid is money, not a place, which keeps it apart from a plant or building.
Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 3 facts
- In banking, facility is a shortened form of credit facility. en.wiktionary.org
- A line of credit can make funds available when the borrower needs them. en.wikipedia.org
- Access to credit under a facility may depend on satisfying agreed conditions. sec.gov
Less common meanings
- 5Ease in doing something, or a natural ability to do or learn something easily and well.
Her facility for public speaking impressed the whole committee.
He plays the piano with a facility few musicians ever reach.
UsageUsually a facility for or in something: a facility for languages.
Similarease, aptitude, talent, flair, gift
Oppositedifficulty, clumsiness, awkwardness, ineptitude
Note
Here the ease belongs to the person rather than the task. Facility suggests practiced fluency, the kind that makes skill look effortless.
- 6A friendly and approachable manner toward others; affability.
Similaraffability, geniality, cordiality, friendliness, amiability
Oppositealoofness, coldness, reserve
Note
An older social grace: ease of manner that puts other people at their own ease. A modern reader of "her facility in company" is likely to hear the sense of skill instead, so the meaning survives mainly in older prose. For new writing, affability or approachability says the same thing without the risk of being misread.
Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 2 facts
- Facility has an older sense meaning affability or an approachable social manner. en.wiktionary.org
- Affability means friendliness or approachability. en.wiktionary.org
- 7In Scots law, a weakness of mind, short of insanity, that leaves a person easily persuaded to act against their own interests.
Practice
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Origin
This word came from Middle English facilite, from Middle French facilité, which traces back to Latin facilitās. It can be analyzed as facile plus the suffix -ity, and it is a doublet of 'faculty'.
Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 5 facts
- Facility came from Middle English facilite. en.wiktionary.org
- Its source was Middle French facilité. fr.wiktionary.org
- Facilité traces back to Latin facilitās. en.wiktionary.org
- Facility can be analyzed as facile plus -ity. en.wiktionary.org
- Facility is a doublet of faculty. en.wiktionary.org