facility
part of speech
noun (a facility, facilities)
meaning for a pupil
1) A facility is a building, room or piece of equipment made for a special purpose, like a sports facility. tree →
2) Facilities are things provided for people to use, like toilets, showers, car parks. tree →
3) (formal) Facility is an ability to do something easily: a facility for languages. tree →
4) (euphemism) "The facilities" can mean the toilets. tree →
sense in the lessons
In everyday life and signs: school facilities, leisure facilities, "Toilet facilities available". In formal or official texts it is a stiff word for a place or building. Phrases: sports facilities, toilet facilities, the facilities, research facility.
examples
- The school has new sports facilities. tree →
- Where are the facilities? I need the loo. tree →
- The camp has showers and other facilities. tree →
- The research facility studies plants. tree →
- The park's facilities include a playground and toilets. tree →
- She has a facility for maths and solves problems fast. tree →
- The new swimming facility opens next month. tree →
- The hotel has facilities for wheelchair users. tree →
note
Plural: facilities. Formal register. "The facilities" as toilets is a polite euphemism. Trap: "facility" with "difficulty" sound alike in ending but mean opposite things (facility = ease).
In the corpora
- "The facilities" is a polite word for the toilet, as in "Where are the facilities?"
- "Correctional facility" is the US official word for a prison.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «facility» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.