a. [f. factīci-us made by art (f. facĕre to make) + -OUS.]
† 1. Made by or resulting from art; artificial.
1646. Sir T. Browne, Pseud. Ep., II. i. 51. It becomes the chiefest ground for artificiall and factitious gemmes.
1685. Boyle, Salubr. Air, 39. Beer, Ale, or other factitious drinks.
1769. De Foe’s Tour Gt. Brit., I. 293. The Stones of which it [Stone-henge] was composed, are not factitious; for that would have been a greater Wonder, than to bring them together to the Place where they are.
1774. J. Bryant, A New System; or, an Analysis of Ancient Mythology, I. 236, note. There were two forts of high places. The one was a natural eminence; a hill or mountain of the earth. The other was a factitious mound.
1801. J. Jones, trans. Bÿggé’s Travels in the French Republic, XV. 382. His [Conté’s] factitious black lead pencils, which are brought to such a degree of perfection, as to rival the best in England: they are not prepared from the native ore, but a composition which consists, as far as I have learned, of iron and sulphur.
† 2. Of soil, etc.: Produced by special causes, not forming part of the original crust of the earth. Obs.
1684. T. Burnet, The Theory of the Earth, I. 137. We must in the first place distinguish between Original Islands and Factitious Islands; Those I call factitious, that are not of the same date and Antiquity with the Sea, but have been made some at one time, some at another, by by accidental causes.
1739. C. Labelye, A Short Account … of Westminster Bridge, 7. This Bed of Sand, Mud and Dirt, is a factitious Bed.
1794. S. Williams, Vermont, 80. The extreme richness of this factitious soil [wholly formed of decayed or rotten leaves, plants, and trees], produces a luxuriancy of vegetation, and an abundance of increase in the first crops.
1808. Wilford, Sacr. Isles, in Asiat. Res., VIII. 298. The factitious soil of the Gangetic provinces … has been brought down by the alluvions of rivers.
3. Got up, made up for a particular occasion or purpose; arising from custom, habit or design; not natural or spontaneous; artificial, conventional.
1678. Cudworth, Intell. Syst., Pref. The Atheists Artificiall and Factitious Justice, is Nothing but Will and Words; and That they give to Civil Sovereigns, no Right nor Authority at all, but onely Belluine Liberty, and Brutish Force.
1748. Hartley, Observations on Man, I. iv. 420. The general theory of the factitious, associated nature of these pleasures.
1776. Gibbon, Decl. & F., I. ix. 174. The use of gold and silver is in a great measure factitious.
1796. Morse, Amer. Geog., II. 51. Others of them [imports] are fought for only in consequence of those factitious wants created by luxury, which are daily increasing in every country of the world.
1810. Bentham, The Elements of the Art of Packing (1821), 67. The mass of factitious expence and delay, (not to speak of vexation) with which the approaches to justice are clogged.
1848. Mill, Pol. Econ., I. xi. § 4. Its acquisition was invested with a factitious value.
1865. E. B. Tylor, Researches into the Early History of Mankind, ii. 23. Few or none of the factitious grammatical signs will bear even the short journey from the schoolroom to the playground.
1871. Freeman, Norm. Conq. (1876), IV. xviii. 106. The momentary and factitious joy which had greeted the day of William’s crowning died utterly away.
Hence Factitiously adv., in a factitious manner. Factitiousness, the quality of being factitious.
1795. Encycl. Brit., XIV. 478/1. Philips, 1681 (title), There is no such Fear, as is factitiously pretended, of Popery and arbitrary Power.
1836–7. Sir W. Hamilton, Metaph., xxxiv. (1859), II. 279. Our factitiously complex, our abstract, and our generalised notions, are all merely so many products of Comparison.
1858. Hawthorne, Fr. & It. Jrnls., II. 59. The Feast of St. John, like the Carnival, is but a meagre semblance of festivity, kept alive factitiously, and dying a lingering death of centuries.
1668. Wilkins, Real Char., II. i. § 3. 28. Factitiousness, artificial, technical, made.
1883. T. Hardy, The Dorsetshire Labourer, in Longm. Mag., July, 257. As the day passes on, and his clothes get wet through, and he is still unhired, there does appear a factitiousness in the smile, which, with a self-repressing mannerliness hardly to be found among any other class, he yet has ready when he encounters and talks with friends who have been more fortunate.
