“He was positive, facile, amiable,” wrote Josiah Gilbert Holland in The Story of Sevenoaks in 1876. The question is, what did he mean?
“Facile” is a word that’s had quite a number of subtly different meanings over the years. For instance, in 1576 it meant lenient or mild: “he shewed hym selfe gentle and facyle.” Generally a good quality.
On the other hand, an 1861 legal dictionary explained it differently: “A person is said to be of a facile disposition, when, although not a fit subject for cognition as an idiot, he is easily imposed upon and liable.” Not a strong-willed sort of individual, in other words; gullible.
In 1744, “facile” might have meant something similar, but not quite the same: “Men of facile or versatile Manners; who can easily turn themselves to all Things.” That sounds more like “flexible” than “gullible,” doesn’t it?
The word isn’t just applied to people. Here it refers to a doctrine, which seems to be superficial or simplistic: “Rather a simpliste, facile doctrine.” But on the other hand, “facile” might just be used to mean “easy”: “The waye is very facile, and without great laboure.” Same thing here, applied to an explanation: “A simple and facile introduction to statistical methods.”
When “facile” means “easy”, it can be applied in all sorts of ways: “I gathered with no facil labour, the most of those Materials.” Except…if something is easy, maybe that means it has little or no value. Sometimes “facile” seems to be a bit derogatory: “The work appears facile,” and “The English drawing master did not teach art, but facile tricks of the brush.”
With this kind of range of meaning, “facile” can be a dangerous word to use because your meaning can be mistaken. You might mean to say that something came easily to someone because of their talent, but end up suggesting the person is a superficial, shallow poser. Godfrey Howard put it this way in The Good English Guide: “Although facile means easy and without effort, it always carries with it the negative meaning of superficial … facile should never be used in a complimentary sense.”
Overall, using “facile” with facility — at least if you want to be clear, which of course is not always the goal — is not as facile as it might seem.
