Facile

By Deane Barker • • tags: definition •
Updates
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Definition: easy, shallow, or simplistic

It’s often used to mean “overly simplistic.” Someone who has a “facile solution” is not thinking about the problem hard enough.

Why I Looked It Up

I’ve been seeing this word forever. I think that I thought it mean flexible?

I can’t remember exactly where I found it, but I kept the quote, so it much have been an apologetic of some kind:

Faith is too easy, too facile.

Update

Added on

I was in Montreal airport when I saw a sign which said, in French:

3 Etapes Faciles

The translation was:

3 Easy Steps

Update

Added on

From The Family:

A lifetime of lying to achieve his goals made the President facile in this crisis…

This was (obviously) about George H.W. or George W. Bush, though I can’t remember which one. Likely, the latter.

It’s an example of the “simplistic” definition of facile, rather than simple. To be facile means to be out of your depth.