say it: FAS-uhl
facile is an adjective meaning "superficially impressive, but lacking depth and attention to the true complexities of a subject". It carries 3 recorded senses.
superficially impressive, but lacking depth and attention to the true complexities of a subject
“too facile a solution for so complex a problem”
“it was a neat plan, but bound to fail”
“a slick advertising campaign”
expressing yourself readily, clearly, effectively
“able to dazzle with his facile tongue”
“silver speech”
Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.
Definitions, synonyms and semantic relations for facile come from Princeton University’s WordNet. The pronunciation comes from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. Commonness is measured against a corpus of everyday English. Full sources and licences.