Etymologically
Log in

faction

This is the current revision of this entry, as edited by bogdan on 22 October 2026 at 21:33. This address is a permanent link to this version.
Changes in this edit History

English has two words spelled faction: the old word for a dissenting group, from Latin, and a 20th-century blend of fact and fiction.[1][2][3][4]

Pronunciation

  • /ˈfæk.ʃən/[5]

faction1 party, group

Etymology

The group is partly borrowed from Middle French faction (also spelt faccion), recorded in French from about 1355 for a seditious group or action,[1][2] and partly a direct borrowing of its source, Latin factiō (“a making or doing; a band, company, political party”).[1][2][6][7] The Latin noun is formed on factus, the past participle of faciō (“to do, make”), with the suffix -ion;[1][2][7] the American Heritage Dictionary and Etymonline trace the verb to Proto-Indo-European *dʰeh₁- (“to set, put”).[8][2] The same Latin word, through Old French, gave fashion, of which faction is a doublet.[6][7][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The action or process of making something: 1440, in the Promptorium Parvulorum, a sense now obsolete.[1][10] A way of acting, a course of conduct, followed in 1447, in Osbern Bokenham's lives of saints.[1] Etymonline dates the word to about 1500, Barnhart and Merriam-Webster to 1509 in the sense of a party.[2][6][3]

Semantic evolution

The early senses "making" and "conduct" were shared with fashion, and both had died out by the 18th and 19th centuries.[1][9] The political sense, an organized dissenting group within a larger one, is recorded from 1509, in John Fisher's sermon for the Countess of Richmond,[1][6] and dissension or party strife in general from a1538, in Thomas Starkey.[1][10] In ancient Rome, Etymonline notes, a factio was first one of the companies of contractors for the chariot races, each known by the colour of its drivers' dress;[2] English has this historical sense from 1606, in Philemon Holland's Suetonius.[1] Johnson (1755) gave "a party in a state" and "tumult; discord; dissension".[11] From 1699 the word was used for a close-knit group of related families in the Scottish Highlands or in Ireland,[1] and the English Dialect Dictionary records Irish factions as hostile associations of peasants, usually one family with its friends and relations.[12] In South Africa, from 1880, it meant any of several rival rural groups whose feuds broke out in periodic violence.[1] At Aberdeen Grammar School a faction was a division of a class, or the bench it sat on, from 1700.[1][12]

Timeline

  • 1440 – the action of making something (obsolete).[1]
  • 1447 – a course of conduct (obsolete).[1]
  • 1509 – an organized dissenting group, especially in politics.[1][6][3]
  • a1538 – dissension, party strife.[1]
  • 1606 – (Roman history) a company of chariot-race contractors.[1]
  • 1609 – verb, to act factiously, to intrigue.[1][3]
  • 1699 – a clan or close-knit family group, in Scotland or Ireland.[1]
  • 1700 – (Scotland) a division of a school class.[1]
  • 1880 – (South Africa) a rival rural group.[1]

Modern meaning

Noun

  1. A small, organized group within a larger body, such as a political party, that disagrees with the rest or pursues its own ends.
  2. Dissension or quarrelling within a group; party spirit.
  3. (Roman history) One of the companies that supplied the chariots and drivers for the races of the circus.

Verb

  1. (rare or obsolete) To form factions; to split into factions.

Word family

  • factional
  • factionalism
  • factious

faction2 fact and fiction

Etymology

The genre is a blend: from English fact + fiction.[1][2][3][4][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Fiction built on real events or characters: 1967, in the publisher's note to H. Atkinson's Games.[1][2][3]

Timeline

  • 1967 – documentary fiction or drama.[1][3]

Modern meaning

Noun

  1. A literary or film genre that tells a story based on real people or events, using the methods of fiction; a work of this kind.

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  3. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  4. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  5. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  6. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  7. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  8. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  9. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  10. ^ 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)
  11. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  12. ^ a b Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)