Facial

How to spell facial

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce facial

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does facial mean?

1. adjectiveRelating to or affecting the face.
2. nounA cosmetic treatment for the skin of the face, typically involving cleansing and massage.

Facial in a sentence

• adjective

  The witness gave a detailed account of the suspect's facial features.

• noun

  She booked a facial at the spa before the wedding.

• adjective

  Years of stress had deepened the facial lines around her eyes.

• noun

  The salon offers a deep-cleansing facial for an extra charge.

Where does facial come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word comes from the Latin facies, meaning 'face', 'form', or 'appearance', the same root that gives us 'surface' and the now archaic 'visage'. From facies, medieval Latin formed facialis to mean 'belonging to the face', and English adopted this as 'facial' in the seventeenth century, at first chiefly as an adjective in medical and anatomical writing. The original facies described the general look or aspect of a thing, not just a human countenance, which is why the related word 'facade' still names the outward face of a building. The cosmetic noun sense, a beauty treatment for the skin of the face, is a much later development that grew popular in the twentieth century. The single 'c' pronounced as 'sh' is the spelling trap here: the ending is -cial, not -tial or -sial.

How the word is built

• faci- (from Latin facies: face, appearance)
• -al (adjective/noun suffix)