Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Facade |
FacadeNoun1. The face or front of a building. 2. A showy misrepresentation intended to conceal something unpleasant. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "facade" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1830. (references) |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
A façade (sometimes just facade) is the exterior of a building – especially the front, but also sometimes the sides and rear. The word comes from the French language, literally meaning "frontage" or "face".In architecture, the façade of a building is often the most important from a design standpoint, as it sets the tone for the rest of the building. Many façades are historic, and local zoning regulations or other codes greatly restrict or even forbid their alteration.
On a movie set, many of the buildings are only façades, which is far cheaper than actual buildings, and not subject to building codes. These are simply held up with supports from behind, and sometimes have boxes for actors and actresses to step in an out of from the front if necessary for a scene.
"Façade" is sometimes used as a figure of speech as well, to describe the "face" that people show other people. An example of this might be a person who seems very professional and organised on the outside, but is really feeling very disorganised and stresseded on the inside.
Façade is a piece of music by William Walton with texts by Edith Sitwell.
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Faade."
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
In computer programming, a facade pattern is one of dozens of design patternss which are currently in print. A design pattern is useful because part of the effort of documenting a design has already been accomplished. A pattern is independent of the implementation language.The facade provides a simplified, standardized interface to a large set of objects. This avoids the problem of having to reference many different, complicated interfaces to each object of that set.
For example, if a program is currently undergoing revision, and a large number of objects have been created, then the facade is a convenience to the users of the program, who already have an abstract concept of what the program is doing for them. Thus, the programmers need design only the new features of the required program, using an interface (the facade) to the existing objects. This allows reuse of the existing objects without recoding. Work on implementing the facade can be separated from the work of implementing the new features.
See also:
design pattern, Abstract factory pattern, Mediator pattern..Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Facade pattern."
Synonyms: FacadeSynonyms: frontage (n), window dressing (n). (additional references) |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Front | Noun: front; fore, forepart; foreground; face, disk, disc, frontage; facade, proscenium, facia, frontispiece; anteriority; obverse. |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
Crosswords: Facade |
| English words defined with "facade": basement ♦ deface ♦ frontispiece ♦ image ♦ persona ♦ sandblast. (references) |
| Non-English Usage: "Facade" is also a word in the following language with English translations in parentheses. Danish (façade, facade). |
| Domain | Usage | |
Movie/TV Titles | Facade (1970) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title | ||
Books | |||
Periodicals |
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Theater & Movies | |||
Music |
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Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit | Thumbnail | Description & Credit |
 | The names of the ships POLA and BLAKE inscribed on the facade of the Oceanographic Museum of Monaco. The BLAKE was the Coast and Geodetic Survey Ship BLAKE which was memorialized because of its work in the Gulf Stream, the Gulf of Mexico, and Caribbean. It also was one of the most innovative of Nineteenth Century research vessels. Credit: Sailing for Science - the NOAA Fleet Then and Now. |  | Chambers of Bishop Joseph Zolotoy (1764-69), east facade, Vologda, Russia. Credit: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540. |
 | Trinity Cathedral (1684-97), east facade, Solikamsk, Russia. Credit: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540. |  | Log Church of the Savior from the village of Zashiversk(1700), bell tower, east facade, moved and reassembled in the Outdoor Architecture and History Museum at Akademgorodok, Russia. Credit: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540. |
 | Andrei D. Kriachkov house (around 1910), main facade, Tomsk, Russia. Credit: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540. |  | Log house, Nikitin Street #15 (at corner of Belinskii Street), (early 20th century), window on Belinskii Street facade, Tomsk, Russia. Credit: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540. |
 | Old Believer Church of the Trinity (around 1907), south facade, Tomsk, Russia. Credit: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540. |  | Monastery of the Icon of the Sign, Church of the Icon of the Sign (1757-62), south facade, Irkutsk, Russia. Credit: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540. |
 | Monastery, Cathedral of the Transfiguration of the Savior (1558-1566), east facade, Solovetskii Island, Russia. Credit: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA. |  | Kalinin house (early 20th century), facade decoration, Belozersk, Russia. Credit: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA. |
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits. | |||
 |  |
| "Facade with ionic columns" by Jen Dixon Commentary: "A cropped shot of a building facade with columns in the ionic order." | "Duomo Facade, Sienna" by Sam Segar Commentary: "West Face of Duomo in Sienna." |
Source: photographs selected by the editor, with permission from the photographers. | |
| Title | Author | Quote |
Les Miserables | Hugo, Victor | Over the entrance was a severe facade, and a wall perpendicular to the facade almost touched the doorway, flanking it at an abrupt right angle |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Civil Liberties | South Africa | In late September, the offices of the Muslim Judicial Council in Cape Town were firebombed, causing superficial damage to the building's facade. (references) |
Economic History | Panama | Despite 1983 constitutional amendments, which appeared to proscribe a political role for the military, the Panama Defense Forces (PDF), as they were then known, continued to dominate Panamanian political life behind a facade of civilian government. (references) |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| "Facade" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 100.00% of the time. "Facade" is used about 251 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (singular) | 100% | 251 | 18,755 |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Language | Translations for "facade"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Arabic | مظهر زائف, واجهة المبنى (frontispiece). (various references) | |
Chinese | 门面. (various references) | |
Danish | facade (façade). (various references) | |
Dutch | façade (façade), voorpui (façade), voorgevel (façade), pui (façade), gevel (battlefront, façade, front, frontage). (various references) | |
Esperanto | fasado (fa@ade). (various references) | |
Finnish | fasadi (face, front), julkisivu (front, frontage). (various references) | |
French | façade (façade). (various references) | |
German | Fassade (façade, front, storefront). (various references) | |
Greek | πρόσοψη (faηade, front, frontage). (various references) | |
Hungarian | megtévesztő külső, külszín (air, face, outside, semblance, surface), homlokzat (elevation, face, facing, forefront, front, front elevation, frontage, frontispiece), arculat (physiognomy), épülethomlokzat (façade). (various references) | |
Indonesian | tedeng aling-aling. (various references) | |
Italian | facciata (ade, façade, face, forefront, front, frontage, page, side, storefront). (various references) | |
Japanese Kanji | 表構え (the front of a building), ファイル分離キャラクタ (bassoon, facility, FACOM, facsimile, fact, faction, factor, factoring, factory, factory automation, factory team, fagot-stitch, fagotting stitch, fascism, fascist, fax, Feynman, file separator, finder, fine, fine ceramics, fine chemical, fine food, fine play, foul, foul line, foul tip, foundation, fuzzy, fuzzy computer, fuzzy logic), 正面 (front, frontage, honesty, main, the front), 前面 (front part, frontage), 外観 (appearance, exterior). (various references) | |
Japanese Katakana | おもてがまえ (the front of a building), がいかん (appearance, customs house, exterior, external pressure, foreign threat, general view, outline), ぜんめん (complete exemption, entire, face, front part, frontage, the front page of an application blank, whole surface), ファサード , しょうめん (facet, front, frontage, main). (various references) | |
Korean | 정면 (front, frontal). (various references) | |
Manx | oaie [f] (exposure, face, facial, front, frontage, grave, sepulchre), oaie (exposure, face, facial, front, frontage, grave, sepulchre). (various references) | |
Pig Latin | acadefay.(various references) | |
Russian | фасад (elevation, face, faзade, front, frontage). (various references) | |
Spanish | frontón (battlefront, façade, front, frontage, fronton, pediment), fachada (ade, façade, face, front, frontage, storefront). (various references) | |
Swedish | framsida (façade, face, front, frontage, obverse), fasad (façade, face, front, frontage, frontal, frontispiece, screen, veneer, window dressing). (various references) | |
Thai | สิ่งหลอกลวง. (various references) | |
Vietnamese | mã ngoài (speciosity, speciousness). (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "facade": facades. (additional references) | |
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"Facade" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: acade, faade, fabada, faca, facad, facader, facads, facae, facale, facere, facode, facue, fadace, Fajardo, Fakeney, famade, fasad, fasade, fascade, fassade, fauchard, fecade, fecode, Fekadu, ficade, Fukida, jacare. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "facade" (pronounced fusÄ"d) |
| 3 | -s Ä" d | sod. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "a-a-c-d-e-f" | |
-1 letter: decaf, faced. | |
-2 letters: aced, cade, cafe, dace, deaf, face, fade. | |
-3 letters: ace, cad, fad, fed. | |
-4 letters: aa, ad, ae, de, ed, ef, fa. | |
| Words containing the letters "a-a-c-d-e-f" | |
+1 letter: facades. | |
+2 letters: falcated. | |
+3 letters: affianced, barefaced, defalcate, fasciated. | |
+4 letters: defalcated, defalcates, defalcator, defeasance, fabricated, fascinated, fricandeau, shamefaced, tradecraft. | |
+5 letters: barefacedly, caffeinated, camouflaged, defalcating, defalcation, defalcators, defeasances, facilitated, fanaticized, fricandeaus, fricandeaux, handcrafted, tradecrafts. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Modern | 5. Usage: Commercial 6. Images: Slideshow 7. Images: Photo Album 8. Images: Digital Art | 9. Quotations: Fiction 10. Quotations: Non-fiction 11. Usage Frequency 12. Expressions: Internet | 13. Translations: Modern 14. Derivations 15. Rhymes 16. Anagrams | 17. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
