fact

Pronunciation

• IPA: /fækt/^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin factum (“deed, event, occurrence”), literally “a thing done”,^[2][3][4] the neuter past participle of facere (“to do, make”),^[2][5][6] from Proto-Indo-European *dʰeh₁- (“to set, put”).^[2][4] It is a doublet of feat, which came earlier through Old French.^[2][3][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

An action or deed, especially an evil one, a crime: 1539.^[3][8] Etymonline dates it to the 1530s,^[2] the Shorter Oxford to the late 15th century,^[9] and Merriam-Webster to the 15th century.^[10]

Semantic evolution

In the 16th and 17th centuries a fact was most often a crime,^[8][2] and Spenser could write “His cruel facts he often would repent”.^[11] The sense survives in the legal phrases before the fact and after the fact.^[12][13][2] A fact could also be a noble deed, an exploit (1543).^[8] The modern sense “something known to be true or to have really happened” is dated 1632 by Barnhart and the OED,^[3][8] although the HTOED records it from 1542.^[14] Trench noted that fact had become distinct from act and deed, since a fact needs no doer.^[11] The plural facts meaning “the circumstances of a case” is from the 18th century.^[13] Factual is first found before 1834, in Coleridge, formed on the pattern of actual.^[3][13]

Timeline

• 1539 – an evil deed, crime.^[3][8]
• 1543 – a noble deed (obsolete).^[8]
• 1542 or 1632 – something known to be true.^[14][8]
• 18th century – facts, the circumstances of a case.^[13]
• before 1834 – factual (Coleridge).^[3]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. Something known to exist or to have happened; a truth.
2. Information presented as objectively true.
3. Reality, as opposed to fiction or opinion.
4. (law) The part of a case concerning events, as decided by the evidence.
5. (law, archaic) A deed, especially a crime: an accessory after the fact.

Word family

• factful
• facticity
• factive
• faction
• factual
• factoid
• attorney-in-fact

Related words

• fashion
• factor
• factorial
• factory
• factotum
• feat
• feature
• affect
• effect
• do

Usage notes

The AHD notes that fact has long been used for what is only claimed to be fact, which led to phrases such as true facts and real facts; these can seem redundant, but they serve where a writer means to set the actual facts against false claims.^[15]

References

1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
2. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (2000), 4th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
5. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
8. ^ a b c d e f g Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
11. ^ a b Trench, Richard Chenevix (1859), A Select Glossary of English Words Used Formerly in Senses Different from Their Present, London: John W. Parker
12. ^ Soanes, Catherine; Stevenson, Angus, eds. (2004), Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 11th ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ a b c d Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
14. ^ a b Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
15. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin