![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
prettygoodwordfacient (FA-see-uhnt) - n., one who does something, an agent, a doer; (Math) (obs) a variable in a quantic.
For those of us who don't remember our obsolete mathematical jargon, a quantic is now known as a polynomial. So in this case, the facient would be what we now call a variable as distinguished from a coefficient. The other meaning is more important. As a suffix, -facient indicates an agent that causes the condition, so an somnifacient is something that causes sleep, an abortifacient causes miscarriages, and so on. Facient comes from Latin facient-, the combining form of faciēns, the present participle of facere, to do.
---L.
For those of us who don't remember our obsolete mathematical jargon, a quantic is now known as a polynomial. So in this case, the facient would be what we now call a variable as distinguished from a coefficient. The other meaning is more important. As a suffix, -facient indicates an agent that causes the condition, so an somnifacient is something that causes sleep, an abortifacient causes miscarriages, and so on. Facient comes from Latin facient-, the combining form of faciēns, the present participle of facere, to do.
---L.
