façade

See also: facade

English

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from French façade

Pronunciation

• Audio:

  (file)

Noun

façade (plural façades)

1. Alternative form of facade.
   • 1941 August, C. Hamilton Ellis, “The English Station”, in Railway Magazine, page 358:

     If Euston is not typically English, St. Pancras is. Its façade is a nightmare of improbable Gothic. It is fairly plastered with the aesthetic ideals of 1868, and the only beautiful thing about it is Barlow's roof. It is haunted by the stuffier kind of ghost. Yet there is something about the ordered whole of St. Pancras that would make demolition a terrible pity.

   • 2019, Bernardine Evaristo, Girl, Woman, Other, Penguin Books (2020), page 291:

     he wanted to know who she was deep down inside, the real Penny behind the pleasant, people-pleasing façade, as was her fate as a woman and mother

Dutch

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from French façade, itself from Italian facciata.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˌfaːˈsaː.də/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Hyphenation: fa‧ça‧de
• Rhymes: -aːdə

Noun

façade f (plural façades, diminutive façadetje n)

1. façade (of a building)
2. façade (deceptive outward appearance)
3. (metonymy) face

Derived terms

• façadisme

Descendants

• Afrikaans: fasade
• → Indonesian: fasade
• → West Frisian: fasade

French

Etymology

Borrowed from Italian facciata, a derivation of faccia (“front”), from Latin facies (“face”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /fa.sad/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ad

Noun

façade f (plural façades)

1. façade (of a building)

   L'entrée principale, au centre de la façade, est précédée d'un perron. (The main entrance, in the center of the façade, is preceded by a flight of steps.)

2. façade (deceptive outward appearance)

   Je me charge de vous montrer Lisbonne. Une belle façade, oui! mais vous verrez ce qu'il y a derrière! (Simone de Beauvoir, Les Mandarins, 1954, p. 88)

Descendants

• → Danish: facade c
• → Dutch: façade f
  • Afrikaans: fasade
  • → Indonesian: fasade
  • → West Frisian: fasade
• → English: facade
• → German: Fassade f
• → Indonesian: fasad
• → Swedish: fasad c

Further reading

• “façade”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.