facultative
/ˈfæ.kəlˌteɪ.tɪv/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: 2.13 in modern English
19
Scrabble Score
11
Letters
4
Syllables
9
Unique Chars
Meaning
adj
Of or relating to faculty, especially to mental faculty.
adj
Not obligate; optional, discretionary or elective.
adj
That grants permission or power to do something.
Example Sentences
- "But does the penny fare end here, said Mr. Nixon, at a merely facultative stop? Surely it ends rather at the station."
- "The policy would be a “facultative” policy, whereby the insurers would first have assessed the risk involved in the particular shipment and decided to accept it."
- "facultative feeder"
- "This hypothesis might be supported by the evidence that there are varieties of pathogenic fungi of which parasitism is in varying degrees, between obligate parasitic and facultative parasitic. The facultative parasite, which usually lives as a saprophyte but under some conditions can parasitize on a plant, seems to be a pathogen with the lowest parasitic adaptation."
- "For then it is seen, as before, that it is the points outside the two sheets which are facultative, and not the points between the surface and the touching plane."
Etymology
From French facultatif. By surface analysis, faculty + -ative.
Origin
- Source language: French
Word Breakdown
- Root: facultatif
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈfæ.kəlˌteɪ.tɪv/
- British English: /ˈfæ.kəl.tə.tɪv/
Inflected Forms
more facultative (comparative)
most facultative (superlative)