facet

Etymology

It is borrowed from French facette,^{[2][3][4][5][6][7][8]} a diminutive of face (“face, side”) (see face),^{[3][5][9][10][11]} with the suffix found in -et.^[6][7][12] The French word is recorded as fasette in 1589 and, as facete, already in the 13th century, meaning a little face.^[2] Etymonline dates the Old French form to the 12th century.^[3] The French noun goes back through Vulgar Latin *facia to Latin faciēs.^[5][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

One of the small cut and polished faces of a diamond or other gem: 1622, in Gerard de Malynes's Consuetudo.^[2] Barnhart dates it to 1625, in Francis Bacon's Essays,^[4][10] and Johnson quoted Bacon's simile of honour reflected like diamonds cut with facets.^[13]

Semantic evolution

Etymonline notes that the diamond-cutting sense is the original one.^[3] It was widened to any flat face of a many-sided body,^[2][6] and since 1808 it has been used figuratively of one side or aspect of something, such as a subject or a character;^[2] Barnhart and Etymonline date the figurative sense to 1820.^[4][3] Naturalists applied it from 1744 to each of the parts of an insect's compound eye, after French,^[2] while anatomists used it from 1790 for a small smooth surface on a bone.^[2] In library science, from 1944 in S. R. Ranganathan, a facet is one of several categories by which something can be classified at the same time.^[2] The verb, to cut facets on, followed in 1850.^[2]

Timeline

• 1622 – one of the cut faces of a gem.^[2] Barnhart dates it to 1625, in Bacon.^[4]
• 1744 – a segment of the compound eye of an insect.^[2]
• 1790 – a small smooth surface on a bone.^[2]
• 1808 – figurative, one aspect of something.^[2] Barnhart and Etymonline date the sense to 1820.^[4][3]
• 1850 – verb, to cut facets on.^[2]
• 1944 – in library science, a category of classification.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. One of the small flat surfaces cut on a gem such as a diamond.^[14][10][2]
2. One side or aspect of a subject, problem or personality: Every facet of the plan was debated.^[14][10][2]
3. Any of the units that make up the compound eye of an insect or other arthropod.^[14][2]
4. (anatomy) A small smooth area on a hard surface, especially a bone.^[14][2]
5. (architecture) The raised surface between the flutes of a column.^[14][10]
6. (library science) One of several categories by which something can be classified at once.^[2]

Verb

1. To cut facets on a gem or other surface.^[10][2]

Word family

• faceted
• multifaceted

Related words

• face
• facade
• superficial

Usage notes

The OED records an unrelated obsolete Facet (1440–75), the title of a medieval Latin manual of behaviour used in schools, from Latin facētus.^[2]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
6. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
9. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
11. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
12. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
13. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
14. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins