catflap.org Online Dictionary Query

  Fact \Fact\, n. [L. factum, fr. facere to make or do. Cf.
     Feat, Affair, Benefit, Defect, Fashion, and -fy.]
     1. A doing, making, or preparing. [Obs.]
  
              A project for the fact and vending Of a new kind of
              fucus, paint for ladies.              --B. Jonson.
  
     2. An effect produced or achieved; anything done or that
        comes to pass; an act; an event; a circumstance.
  
              What might instigate him to this devilish fact, I am
              not able to conjecture.               --Evelyn.
  
              He who most excels in fact of arms.   --Milton.
  
     3. Reality; actuality; truth; as, he, in fact, excelled all
        the rest; the fact is, he was beaten.
  
     4. The assertion or statement of a thing done or existing;
        sometimes, even when false, improperly put, by a transfer
        of meaning, for the thing done, or supposed to be done; a
        thing supposed or asserted to be done; as, history abounds
        with false facts.
  
              I do not grant the fact.              --De Foe.
  
              This reasoning is founded upon a fact which is not
              true.                                 --Roger Long.
  
     Note: TheTerm fact has in jurisprudence peculiar uses in
           contrast with low; as, attorney at low, and attorney in
           fact; issue in low, and issue in fact. There is also a
           grand distinction between low and fact with reference
           to the province of the judge and that of the jury, the
           latter generally determining the fact, the former the
           low. --Burrill Bouvier.
  
     Accessary before, or after, the fact. See under
        Accessary.
  
     Matter of fact, an actual occurrence; a verity; used
        adjectively: of or pertaining to facts; prosaic;
        unimaginative; as, a matter-of-fact narration.
  
     Syn: Act; deed; performance; event; incident; occurrence;
          circumstance.