Facilis

Did you know that there is a relationship between the words “difficult” and “facilitate”. I didn’t see anything in common at first, because these words are so elementary that I never thought of their etymology. (Besides, the letter ‘c’ has different sounds).

It turns out that they both come from the same origin, which is the Latin adjective “facilis”, meaning “that can be done” or “easy”¹. Perhaps it goes without saying, but the word “difficult” is the combination of facilis and the prefix “dis-“², which implies negation.

There are some more words related to facilis, “facile” and “faculty”. To be sure, facile³ is a common English word meaning “too simple, usually in a negative way” or “(too) easy”. Although I don’t go into the meanings of faculty here, it has several meanings associated with “ability”, which is connected to the sense of “can be done”.