adjective
- not spontaneous or natural; artificial; contrived: factitious laughter; factitious enthusiasm.
- made; manufactured: a decoration of factitious flowers and leaves.
adjective
- artificial rather than naturalfactitious demands created by the mass media
- not genuine; shamfactitious enthusiasm
1640s, from Latin factitius “artificial,” from factus, past participle of facere “do” (source of French faire, Spanish hacer), from PIE root *dhe- “to put, to do” (cf. Sanskrit dadhati “puts, places;” Avestan dadaiti “he puts;” Old Persian ada “he made;” Hittite dai- “to place;” Greek tithenai “to put, set, place;” Lithuanian deti “to put;” Polish dziać się “to be happening;” Russian delat’ “to do;” Old High German tuon, German tun, Old Saxon, Old English don “to do;” Old Frisian dua, Old Swedish duon, Gothic gadeths “a doing;” Old Norse dalidun “they did”).
adj.
- Produced artificially rather than by a natural process.