fact
Pluralfacts
Pluralfacts
- 1Something that is known or proved to be true, or that really happened, rather than being invented, imagined, or merely believed.
Reporters are trained to separate fact from rumor before they publish.
The novel blends historical fact with entirely invented characters.
UsageCommon in the fact that + clause, stick to the facts and fact and fiction.
Similartruth, reality, actuality
Oppositefiction, fantasy, falsehood
Note
The everyday sense sets the real against the made-up, and its Latin root still shows through. Factum meant "a thing done," from faciō "do, make," so a fact was at first a deed, something actually done.
- 2What is actually known about a subject, especially the real circumstances or state of affairs.
The committee gathered every relevant fact before reaching a decision.
Investigators assembled the facts surrounding the building's collapse.
UsageUsually plural: the facts about space travel, the facts of the case.
Similardetail, particular, circumstance, information (entry)
Note
Schoolrooms use it for the memorized basics of arithmetic. Addition facts such as 2 + 2 = 4 are drilled for quick recall, and teachers speak of them the way they speak of spelling words.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 1 fact
- 2 + 2 = 4 is an addition fact. en.wiktionary.org
- 3Said before a statement to present it as trustworthy and beyond dispute.
Fact: the proposal was rejected before anyone had even read it.
Fact: nobody in this family has ever finished a road trip without getting lost at least once.
UsageOften written before a statement with a colon after it: Fact: the plan failed.
Similarhonestly
Less common meanings
- 4A wrongful or criminal deed.
Prosecutors charged her as an accessory before the fact, saying she had planned the entire heist.
Anyone who shelters the offender afterward may be charged as an accessory after the fact.
UsageMostly in accessory before the fact and accessory after the fact.
Note
Law kept this sense alive after everyday English let it go. The fact here is the crime itself. An accessory before the fact helps bring it about, and an accessory after the fact shelters the offender. Howell's State Trials, a collection of older trial records, has prisoners who "confess the fact." Spenser and Shakespeare's Measure for Measure use the sense freely.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 7 facts
- Fact has a legal sense meaning a wrongful or criminal deed, preserved in set phrases. en.wiktionary.org
- An accessory before the fact helps bring about the crime. en.wikipedia.org
- An accessory after the fact can shelter the offender. en.wikipedia.org
- Howell's State Trials is a collection of historical trial records. law.duke.edu
- Howell's collection contains the wording 'confess the fact' about defendants admitting their crime. en.wiktionary.org
- Spenser uses fact to mean a wrongful deed. pages.uoregon.edu
- Shakespeare's Measure for Measure uses fact to mean a criminal deed. gutenberg.org
- 5Action; the realm of action, as distinct from thought or speech.
Note
Here the word means doing itself, the realm of action set against title and claim. Francis Bacon's History of the Reign of King Henry the Seventh (1622) calls Richard III "king in fact only, but tyrant both in title and regiment": he held the throne in deed but not by right. The modern phrase in fact comes from this old sense of deed. Outside historical pastiche the sense reads as archaic.
- 6A feat or meritorious deed; a noteworthy achievement.
When he who most excels in fact of arms,
1667, John Milton, Paradise LostUUho when he ſhal embrace you in his arms UUil tell how many thouſand men he ſlew. And when you looke for amorous diſcourſe, Will rattle foorth his facts of war and blood: Too harſh a ſubiect for your daintie eares.
c. 1587, [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. The First PartNote
This is the bright twin of the criminal deed: the same word once named a feat to be proud of. In Marlowe's Tamburlaine the Great, a warrior suitor "will rattle foorth his facts of war and blood." In Milton's Paradise Lost (1667), Belial describes Moloch as the one who "most excels in fact of arms." The sense is obsolete, so a modern reader meeting "facts of war" should read deeds, not data.
- 7In a data warehouse, a single value or measurement recorded at the finest level of detail.
Showing meanings only.
Practice
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Origin
It comes from Middle English fact, from Latin factum ("an act, deed, or feat"), the neuter of factus ("done or made"), the past participle of faciō ("do, make"), ultimately from the Proto-Indo-European root *dʰeh₁- ("to put, place, set"). It is a doublet of feat.
Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 7 facts
- The current Wiktionary entry derives English fact from Middle English fact, from Latin factum. en.wiktionary.org
- The etymological chain leads to Latin factum, meaning an act, deed, or feat. en.wiktionary.org
- Factum is the neuter form of factus. en.wiktionary.org
- Latin factus means done or made. en.wiktionary.org
- Factus is the past participle of faciō, meaning do or make. en.wiktionary.org
- The word ultimately derives from the Proto-Indo-European root *dʰeh₁-, meaning to put, place, or set. en.wiktionary.org
- Fact and feat are doublets. en.wiktionary.org