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• facade
  facade
• façade
  façade

  noun

  the face of a building, esp the main front

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What style of architecture featured light, asymmetrical, and elaborate facades?

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facade

American  

[fuh-sahd, fa-] / fəˈsɑd, fæ- /

Or façade

noun

• facades
  plural

1. Architecture.

   1. 

      the front of a building, especially an imposing or decorative one.

   2. any side of a building facing a public way or space and finished accordingly.

2. a superficial appearance or illusion of something.

   They managed somehow to maintain a facade of wealth.

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façade British  

/ fəˈsɑːd, fæ- /

noun

1. the face of a building, esp the main front

2. a front or outer appearance, esp a deceptive one

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Usage

What does facade mean? A facade is the front of a building or a side that faces a public area. Facade is used literally to describe a decorative, showy, or onrate piece of architecture that frames the front of a building, as in The architect who designed this building used a showy facade on it to help it stand out from nearby buildings. A facade is also a superficial appearance or an illusion, which can be literal or figurative. If a movie star wears a dark hoodie and sunglasses so they won’t be recognized by the press, they are wearing a literal facade. If that movie star acts completely different from who they actually are or puts on an alternate personality in order to trick or convince people of something, that is a figurative facade. Example: He continually lied to keep up his facade until the whole thing stumbled out of control.

Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• facades
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of facade

First recorded in 1650–60; from French, from Upper Italian faciada, Italian facciata, equivalent to facci(a) face + -ata -ade ¹

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Explanation

A facade is the front of a building, or a kind of front people put up emotionally. If you're mad but acting happy, you're putting up a facade. This word has to do with the outer layer of something. One sense has to do with the front or outside of a building. The other meaning has to do with people who are hiding something. In both cases, the facade could be deceiving. A building with a gorgeous facade isn't necessarily gorgeous inside. A person putting on a facade is definitely putting on a front: the face they're showing to the world doesn't match how they're feeling.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

facade façade facades

Graffiti covered its charred facade, and it became a source of frustration for the neighborhood, attracting squatters and illegal garbage dumping.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 12, 2026

An AFP photographer on Thursday saw that the diplomatic emblem and a plaque that adorned the consulate's facade had been removed.

From Barron's ● Oct. 8, 2026

The facade of the building betrays no affiliation—neither hammer nor sickle.

From Slate ● Sep. 18, 2026

The steady decrease in quality is unmistakable, and it’s perfectly conceivable that even a day-one Marvel enthusiast would feel the facade crumbling at some point.

From Salon ● Sep. 11, 2026

Several gaze openmouthed up at the facade of the chateau.

From "All the Light We Cannot See" by Anthony Doerr

The skyscraper, opened in New York nearly 100 years ago, will see its Art Deco crown polished and restored during a refurbishment that will also involve the restoration of the building's 77-storey façade.

From BBC ● Oct. 8, 2026

Specialist façade contractor Lindner Prater was also fined £300,000, after it and St James were found guilty of ignoring "foreseeable risks".

From BBC ● Sep. 24, 2026

Designed by Gaudí, the Nativity façade is both naturalistic and overflowing with natural imagery: lilies and palm trees, a tortoise and sea turtle, insects and frogs, sheep and ducks.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 14, 2026

And the occasional cracks in what might be called her monumental façade.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 2, 2026

The first time I ever saw it I thought the façade was ugly but I liked it now.

From "The Sun Also Rises" by Ernest Hemingway

But most insistently, the interstitial visuals are cinematographer Szor’s night shots of apartment facades in modern Tel Aviv: citizens at rest with their loved ones, working out or eating in front of their televisions.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 9, 2026

His photographs capture not only the movie houses but their ornate facades and decay -- a record of a cultural landscape disappearing as cinemas are demolished, converted into multiplexes or left to crumble.

From Barron's ● Sep. 27, 2026

Not only that, but a lot of “Love Story” takes place behind the public facades of Kennedy and Bessette, in the offices of Calvin Klein and inside Kennedy’s Tribeca loft.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 19, 2026

The fortunes of Havana's colonial buildings mirror that of the nearly seven-decade-old revolution, their peeling pastel-colored facades are symbols of the repeated crises that have rocked the island, and its surprising resilience.

From Barron's ● Jun. 17, 2026

We drive down another identical suburban street, past endless rows of tightly spaced homes, once full of life, but now their facades look like dead faces with sagging eyes seething despair.

From "Dry" by Neal Shusterman and Jarrod Shusterman

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