fact
/fakt
/- So go and see it with your own eyes and discover for yourself if it is an historical fact.
- It is a sad fact that when a litter of pigs is born, it is quite normal to have one or two born dead.
- It is a fact that most of those who are on the street have an addiction to drugs or alcohol.
Synonyms
- The primary facts thus are the evidence of the ceremony that is valid according to local law.
- In all cases, we have to distill the facts from the various reports and documents.
- Who knows what the true facts of this case are but there is certainly more to it than meets the eye.
Synonyms
- The judge did not refer the jury to the fact that a mistaken witness can be a convincing one.
- It's not the fact that to get to the crew room I have to go up two flights of stairs and down three.
- We want Kirklees Council to respect the fact that most of us want to stay on the estate.
- The Ombudsman is the sole judge of fact and he can only be corrected on errors of law.
- We would then have an opportunity for questions on a point of fact or a clarification.
- If the comment amounts to a statement of fact then it must be proved to be true or privileged.
Phrases
before (or after) the fact
facts and figures
a fact of life
the facts of life
the fact of the matter
in (point of) fact
Origin
Late 15th century: from Latin factum, neuter past participle of facere 'do'. The original sense was 'an act', later 'a crime', surviving in the phrase before (or after) the fact. The earliest of the current senses ( 'truth, reality') dates from the late 16th century.
factory from late 16th century:
The first factories were far from any urban area, in India and southeast Asia. A factory in the late 16th century was a trading company's foreign base or station. The first use of the word in something like the modern sense came in the early 17th century, but until the Victorian era a building where goods were produced was more usually called a manufactory. The root of factory is Latin facere ‘to make or do’, the source of a great many English words such as fact, factor, feat, and feature (all LME). The sense ‘a place where things are made’ probably came from Latin factorium ‘oil press’.