Hypertext Webster Gateway: "facilities"

From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) (web1913)

Facility \Fa*cil"i*ty\, n.; pl. {Facilities}. [L. facilitas, fr.
facilis easy: cf. F. facilit?. See {Facile}.]
1. The quality of being easily performed; freedom from
difficulty; ease; as, the facility of an operation.

The facility with which government has been
overturned in France. --Burke.

2. Ease in performance; readiness proceeding from skill or
use; dexterity; as, practice gives a wonderful facility in
executing works of art.

3. Easiness to be persuaded; readiness or compliance; --
usually in a bad sense; pliancy.

It is a great error to take facility for good
nature. --L'Estrange.

4. Easiness of access; complaisance; affability.

Offers himself to the visits of a friend with
facility. --South.

5. That which promotes the ease of any action or course of
conduct; advantage; aid; assistance; -- usually in the
plural; as, special facilities for study.

Syn: Ease; expertness; readiness; dexterity; complaisance;
condescension; affability.

Usage: {Facility}, {Expertness}, {Readiness}. These words
have in common the idea of performing any act with
ease and promptitude. Facility supposes a natural or
acquired power of dispatching a task with lightness
and ease. Expertness is the kind of facility acquired
by long practice. Readiness marks the promptitude with
which anything is done. A merchant needs great
facility in dispatching business; a banker, great
expertness in casting accounts; both need great
readiness in passing from one employment to another.
``The facility which we get of doing things by a
custom of doing, makes them often pass in us without
our notice.'' --Locke. ``The army was celebrated for
the expertness and valor of the soldiers.'' ``A
readiness to obey the known will of God is the surest
means to enlighten the mind in respect to duty.''


Additional Hypertext Webster Gateway Lookup

Enter word here:
Exact Approx


dict.stokkie.net
Gateway by dict@stokkie.net
stock only wrote the gateway and does not have any control over the contents; see the Webster Gateway FAQ, and also the Back-end/database links and credits.