| Front | factitious \fak-TIH-shus\ |
|---|---|
| Back | adjective 1. Produced by humans rather than by natural forces. 2. Artificial. [Like the common words "fact" and "factual," "factitious" ultimately comes from the Latin verb "facere," meaning "to do" or "to make." But in current use, "factitious" has little to do with things factual and true — in fact, "factitious" often implies the opposite. The most immediate ancestor of "factitious" is the Latin adjective "facticius," meaning "made by art" or "artificial." When English speakers first adopted the word as "factitious" in the 17th century, it meant "produced by human effort or skill" (rather than arising from nature). This meaning gave rise to such meanings as "artificial" and "false" or "feigned."] "'For me, this is the only real place,' David says in the novel, but for the reader the city remains disappointingly factitious." - Say Nice Things About Detroit; The New Yorker; Aug 27, 2012. |
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