Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The face of a building, especially the principal face.
  • noun An artificial or deceptive front.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In architecture, a front view or elevation; the chief exterior face of a building, or any one of its principal faces if it has more than one: as, the façade of the Louvre; the façade of St. Peter's in Rome.
  • noun In organ-building, same as prospect, 12.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Arch.) The front of a building; esp., the principal front, having some architectural pretensions.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun architecture The face of a building, especially the front view or elevation.
  • noun by extension The face or front (most visible side) of any other thing, such as an organ.
  • noun figuratively A deceptive outward appearance; a front.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the face or front of a building
  • noun a showy misrepresentation intended to conceal something unpleasant

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[French, from Italian facciata, from faccia, face, from Vulgar Latin *facia, from Latin faciēs; see dhē- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Borrowing from French façade, from Italian facciata, a derivation of faccia ("front"), from Latin facies ("face"); compare face.

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Examples

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