facade

Etymology

It is borrowed from French façade,^{[2][3][4][5][6]} from Italian facciata (“front of a building”),^{[3][4][5][7][8]} formed from faccia (“face”) and the suffix -ata, the source of -ade.^[6][9] The Oxford dictionaries describe the French word instead as formed from face (“face”) on the pattern of the Italian one.^{[2][10][11][12]} Dictionary.com also gives faciada, a form of northern Italy.^[9] The Italian noun goes back to Vulgar Latin *facia, from Latin faciēs (“appearance, form; face”),^[3][4][5] which Etymonline thinks is probably related to faciō (“to make”) and to Proto-Indo-European *dʰeh₁- (“to set, put”).^[3] It is related to face.^[3][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The front of a building towards a street or open space, especially the main front: 1656, in Blount's Glossographia.^[2] Barnhart dates it to an edition of the Glossographia between 1656 and 1681,^[4] and Merriam-Webster to about 1681.^[6]

Semantic evolution

The word came into English as a term of architecture.^[2][13] Transferred and figurative uses are recorded from 1839, in Darwin,^[2] by 1845 in Etymonline,^[3] and in Barnhart from 1875;^[4] the Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins dates the figurative use for the face a person puts on to the mid-19th century.^[13] The meaning of an outward front, especially a deceptive one, is dated to the late 19th century by the Shorter Oxford,^[10] and it is now the commonest sense after the architectural one.^[5][7] Façadism, from the mid-19th century, is a style that puts its emphasis on the fronts of buildings, and later the practice of keeping the front of a building while its interior is rebuilt.^[10]

Timeline

• 1656 – the front of a building.^[2][4]
• c. 1681 – first known use in Merriam-Webster.^[6]
• 1839 – transferred and figurative use.^[2]
• 1875 – figurative sense in Barnhart.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. The front of a building, especially the main front facing a street or open space: the marble facade of the town hall.^[2][5][7][6]
2. Any face of a building, such as a side facing a court, that is given special architectural treatment.^[6]
3. A false, superficial or artificial outward appearance: His good humour was only a facade.^{[5][7][10][6]}

Verb

1. To give a facade to; to cover with a facade: a hotel facaded with red brick.^[6]

Word family

• facadism

Related words

• face
• facet
• surface
• deface
• efface

Usage notes

The spelling with a cedilla, façade, is the main one in the Collins and American Heritage dictionaries,^[7][5] while Merriam-Webster lists facade first and façade as less common.^[6]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b c d e f g The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
8. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
9. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
10. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
13. ^ a b Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press