facultative

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English

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Etymology

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From French facultatif.[1] By surface analysis, faculty +‎ -ative.

Pronunciation

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Adjective

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facultative (comparative more facultative, superlative most facultative)

  1. Of or relating to faculty, especially to mental faculty.
  2. Not obligate; optional, discretionary or elective.
    Synonyms: see Thesaurus:optional
    Antonyms: see Thesaurus:requisite
    • 1953, Samuel Beckett, Watt, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Grove Press, published 1959, →OCLC:
      But does the penny fare end here, said Mr. Nixon, at a merely facultative stop? Surely it ends rather at the station.
    • 2020, Jonathan Mance et al., editors, Insurance Disputes, Taylor & Francis, →ISBN, page 584:
      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.
  3. That grants permission or power to do something.
  4. (biology) Able to perform a particular life function, or to live generally, in more than one way.
    Antonym: obligate
    facultative feeder
    • 1993, Hachiro Oku, Plant Pathogenesis and Disease Control, CRC Press, →ISBN, page 10:
      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.
  5. (geometry, of a point) At which a given function is positive.
    • 1866, George Salmon, Lessons Introductory to the Modern Higher Algebra, Dublin: Hodges, Smith, and Co., page 197:
      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.

Derived terms

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Translations

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References

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  1. ^ “facultative, adj.”, in OED Online Paid subscription required⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.

Anagrams

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French

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Pronunciation

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Adjective

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facultative

  1. feminine singular of facultatif
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