facial

What it means

1. not comparablerelationalOf or affecting the face.
2. not comparablerelationalmedicineConcerned with or used in improving the appearance of the face.
3. not comparabletransferred senselaw(of a law or regulation validity) On its face; as it appears (as opposed to on a more probing analysis, as it is applied, etc.).

   The facial constitutionality of the law is in question.

   1 more example

   Discipline is a form of counter-law, of dissymmetry and inequality, that operates under the discourse of juridical power to make possible the stated or facial claims of equality and rights characteristic of the French Revolution.

   2001, Bernard E. Harcourt, chapter 5, in Illusion of Order

In a sentence

The facial constitutionality of the law is in question.

Where it comes from

1. Proto-Indo-European*dʰeh₁-
2. Proto-Indo-European*dʰeh₁k-
3. Proto-Indo-European*dʰh₁kyéti
4. Proto-Italic*θakjō
5. Proto-Italic*fakjō
6. Latinfaciō
7. Latinfaciēs
8. Proto-Indo-European*h₂el-
9. Proto-Indo-European*h₂élisder.?
10. Medieval Latinfaciālis
11. Englishfacial

Early 17th century, borrowed from Medieval Latin faciālis (“face-to-face, direct, open”), from faciēs (“form, configuration, figure; face, visage, countenance”) + -ālis (“-al”, adjectival suffix).