different between facility vs endowment

English

Etymology

From Middle French facilité, and its source, Latin facilit?s.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /f??s?l?ti/
• Rhymes: -?l?ti

Noun

facility (countable and uncountable, plural facilities)

1. The fact of being easy, or easily done; absence of difficulty, simplicity. [from 16th c.]
2. Dexterity of speech or action; skill, talent. [from 16th c.]

   The facility she shows in playing the violin is unrivalled.

3. The physical means or contrivances to make something (especially a public service) possible; the required equipment, infrastructure, location etc. [from 19th c.]

   Transport facilities in Bangkok are not sufficient to prevent frequent traffic collapses during rush hour.
4. An institution specially designed for a specific purpose, such as incarceration, military use, or scientific experimentation.
5. (Canada, US, in the plural) A toilet. [from 20th c.]
6. (Scotland, law) A condition of mental weakness less than idiocy, but enough to make a person easily persuaded to do something against their better interest.
7. (dated) Affability.

Derived terms

• correctional facility

Translations

English

Etymology

From Middle English endowement; equivalent to endow +? -ment.

Pronunciation

• (UK) enPR: ?n-dou?m?nt, ?n-, IPA^(key): /?n?da?m?nt/, /?n?da?m?nt/
• (US) enPR: ?n-dou?m?nt, ?n-, IPA^(key): /?n?da?m?nt/, /?n?da?m?nt/

Noun

endowment (plural endowments)

1. Something with which a person or thing is endowed.
   • 1791, Benjamin Banneker, Letter to Thomas Jefferson on racism and slavery (19 August 1791):

     I suppose it is a truth too well attested to you, to need a proof here, that we are a race of beings, who have long labored under the abuse and censure of the world; that we have long been looked upon with an eye of contempt; and that we have long been considered rather as brutish than human, and scarcely capable of mental endowments.

   • 1958, Adlai Stevenson, Speech to the United Parents Association:

     We must not, in opening our schools to everyone, confuse the idea that all should have equal chance with the notion that all have equal endowments.

   • 1985, Jonas Salk, Interview on The Open Mind (11 May 1985):

     What is … important is that we — number one: Learn to live with each other. Number two: try to bring out the best in each other. The best from the best, and the best from those who, perhaps, might not have the same endowment.
2. Property or funds invested for the support and benefit of a person or not-for-profit institution.
   • 1884, Edwin Abbott Abbott, in chapter 8 of his novella Flatland:

     Not content with the natural neglect into which Sight Recognition was falling, they began boldly to demand the legal prohibition of all "monopolizing and aristocratic Arts" and the consequent abolition of all endowments for the studies of Sight Recognition, Mathematics, and Feeling.

   • 1932, Robert Clarkson Clothier, after assuming the presidency of Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

     I seem to see a great university, great in endowment, in land, in buildings, in equipment, but greater still, second to none, in its practical idealism, and its social usefulness.
3. (insurance) Endowment assurance or pure endowment.
4. (Mormonism) A ceremony designed to prepare participants for their role in the afterlife.

Synonyms

• (something with which a person or thing is endowed): gift

Derived terms

• endowment mortgage

Related terms

• endow

Translations

Middle English

Noun

endowment

1. Alternative form of endowement