facade

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noun fa·cade \ fə-ˈsäd \

variants: or less commonly façade

Definition of facade

1 :the front of a building; also :any face of a building given special architectural treatment

a museum's east facade

2 :a false, superficial, or artificial appearance or effect

tried to preserve the facade of a happy marriage

See facade defined for English-language learners

See facade defined for kids

Examples of facade in a Sentence

"I mean, don't you find yourself being extra careful about what you say and how you say it? As if you have to be this phony, put on a facade, because you don't want to give them the wrong impression?" —Terry McMillan, Waiting to Exhale, 1992
When I watched him in motion picture roles after the war, I knew there was something of honest substance behind that acting façade. —Andrew A. Rooney, And More by Andy Rooney, (1979) 1982
… but his magic power of concentration was gone. All the façades he built up between himself and his desperate love never entirely hid it. —May Sarton, Shadow of a Man, 1950
the facade of the bank
the windowless façade of the skyscraper
They were trying to preserve the facade of a happy marriage.
I could sense the hostility lurking behind her polite facade.

Recent Examples of facade from the Web

The building stands in the center of Jasper, fronted by a handsome gray facade, fountains and fresh cut flowers.

— amy yurkanin, AL.com, "Poor, rural and addicted: Drugs drive surge in white women in prison," 24 Aug. 2017
The exterior facade collapsed about 20 minutes after impact, but ASCE based its measurements of the original hole on the number of first-floor support columns that were destroyed or damaged.

— Popular Mechanics, "Debunking the 9/11 Myths: Special Report - The Pentagon," 1 Aug. 2017
The colorful exhibition is the brainchild of Oh Happy Day, artist Leah Rosenberg, and designer Erin Jang, and its 15 original works of art will be housed in two-story space, complete with a vivid, striped facade.

— chelsea stone, Teen Vogue, "San Francisco’s Color Factory Is About to Be All Over Your Instagram," 1 Aug. 2017
Dwellings are more modest on the east side, including public housing in the form of brick ranch houses whose stoops have brick columns and pediments that jarringly echo the facade of Gaineswood, the nearby plantation manor museum.

— the washington post, AL.com, "A police car damaged an Alabama Confederate monument and reopened a town's painful wounds," 20 July 2017
The 1000 South Clark building's glass facade glistens 29 stories high.

— elyssa cherney, chicagotribune.com, "Shooting behind South Loop Target worries residents," 18 July 2017
Though the president’s name appears in large gold letters on the building’s facade, the property is actually owned and managed by a Canadian company called The Holborn Group, which is in turn owned by the Malaysian billionaire Joo Kim Tiah.

— jeremy venook, The Atlantic, "Trump’s Interests vs. America’s, Vancouver Edition," 13 July 2017
Look upon its stony facade and know that someone is inside that immense place, swimming lonely laps or lying on the roof terrace, gazing up at the mottled night sky and thinking of orphans.

— vanityfair.com, "Will This Be the Fanciest Home in the West Village?," 11 July 2017
But don’t expect to see a large Hilton marquee suddenly adorn the facade of the 129-year-old, red-roofed Victorian building.

— lori weisberg, sandiegouniontribune.com, "Hotel del Coronado is going to become a Hilton," 5 July 2017

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'facade.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

A Brief History of facade

Facade is thought to have come to English from the Vulgar Latin facia, meaning “face.” Along the way it passed through both Italian, as faccia, and French, as _façade. The earliest meaning of the word in English was in reference to the front portion of a building, it’s “face,” so to speak (and face itself is sometimes used to describe this part of a structure as well). Somewhere along the way _ facade_ took on a figurative sense, referring to a way of behaving or appearing that gives other people a false idea of your true feelings or situation. This is similar the figurative use of veneer, which originally had the simple meaning of a thin layer of wood that was used to cover something, and now may also refer to a sort of deceptive behavior that masks one’s actual feelings (as in, “he had a thin veneer of politeness”).