faca

See also: facaʼ, facă, and faça

Galician

Etymology 1

Unknown. Probably not from Latin falx, from which originates fouce (“sickle”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈfaka̝/

Noun

faca f (plural facas)

1. a large pocketknife
2. (regional) knife

Etymology 2

From Old French haque, from Middle English hack, from Hackney, a borough of London famous for its horses. Cognate with Spanish jaca.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈfaka̝/

Noun

faca f (plural facas)

1. a mare
   • 1455, X. Ferro Couselo, editor, A vida e a fala dos devanceiros, Vigo: Galaxia, page 316:

     Iten, que furtara a faqa a Pero Gayo da sua casa, que está á par da vila de Ribadauia, da casa que está á par da ponte, et que lla furtara con a sella e con o freo et que fora despois por ela preso ena Cruña

     Item, that he stole the mare of Pedro Gaio, from his house that is near the town of Ribadavia, by the bridge; and that he stole her with saddle and bridle, and that later he was captured because of her in A Coruña

References

• Seoane, Ernesto Xosé González; Granja, María Álvarez de la; Agrelo, Ana Isabel Boullón (2006–2022), “faca”, in Dicionario de Dicionarios do galego medieval [Dictionary of dictionaries of Medieval Galician] (in Galician), Santiago de Compostela: Instituto da Lingua Galega
• Barreiro, Xavier Varela; Guinovart, Xavier Gómez (2006–2018), “faca”, in Corpus Xelmírez: corpus lingüístico da Galicia medieval [Corpus Xelmírez: linguistic corpus of Medieval Galicia] (in Galician), Santiago de Compostela: Instituto da Lingua Galega
• Antón Santamarina, editor (2006–2013), “faca”, in Dicionario de Dicionarios da lingua galega [Dictionary of Dictionaries of the Galician language] (in Galician), Santiago de Compostela: Instituto da Lingua Galega
• Antón Santamarina, Ernesto X. González Seoane, María Álvarez de la Granja, editors (2003–2018), “faca”, in Tesouro informatizado da lingua galega (in Galician), Santiago de Compostela: Instituto da Lingua Galega
• Rosario Álvarez Blanco, editor (2014–2024), “faca”, in Tesouro do léxico patrimonial galego e portugués (in Galician), Santiago de Compostela: Instituto da Lingua Galega, →ISSN

Irish

Alternative forms

• facaidh

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈfˠakə/, /ˈfˠɑkə/

Verb

faca

1. past indicative dependent analytic of feic

   Ceapaim go bhfaca sé an madra.

   I think that he saw the dog.

Usage notes

• Always occurs either lenited or eclipsed in the standard language, depending on the preverbal particle:

  Ní fhaca mé. ― I didn’t see.

  an áit a bhfaca mé an buachaill inti ― the place where I saw the boy

• In the Munster dialect, the preverbal particle ná triggers no mutation, so faca appears in the radical:

  Is dócha ná faca sé thú. ― He probably didn’t see you.

• Takes the forms of preverbal particles normally associated with the present tense, such as go, an, and nach, rather than gur, ar, and nár:

  An bhfaca tú? ― Did you see?

  Nach bhfaca tú? ― Didn’t you see?

  Ná facais? (Munster) ― Didn’t you see?

Mutation

Mutated forms of faca

radical	lenition	eclipsis
faca	fhaca	bhfaca

Note: Certain mutated forms of some words can never occur in standard Modern Irish.
All possible mutated forms are displayed for convenience.

Old English

Noun

faca

1. genitive plural of fæc

Portuguese

facas

Etymology

Unknown. Possibly from Latin falx (“sickle”).

Cognate with Galician faca.

Pronunciation

• (Brazil) IPA^(key): /ˈfa.kɐ/

• (Portugal) IPA^(key): /ˈfa.kɐ/

• Audio (Portugal (Porto)):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -akɐ
• Hyphenation: fa‧ca

Noun

faca f (plural facas)

1. knife

   Synonym: (Portugal, informal, slang) naifa

Derived terms

• esfaquear
• faca de dois gumes
• facada
• facalhaz
• facão
• faqueiro
• faquinha

Further reading

• “faca”, in Dicionário Aulete Digital (in Portuguese), Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon Editora Digital, 2008–2026

Scottish Gaelic

Etymology

From Old Irish ·accae.

Pronunciation

• (Lewis) IPA^(key): /ˈfãʰkə/
• (Uist) IPA^(key): /ˈfãxkə/

Verb

faca

1. past dependent of faic

Mutation

Mutation of faca

radical	lenition
faca	fhaca

Note: Certain mutated forms of some words can never occur in standard Scottish Gaelic.
All possible mutated forms are displayed for convenience.

Serbo-Croatian

Etymology

Borrowed from Venetan fazza.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /fât͡sa/
• Hyphenation: fa‧ca

Noun

fȁca f (Cyrillic spelling фа̏ца) (colloquial, slang)

1. face, expression

   Synonyms: líce, fizionòmija

2. person, guy

   Synonym: ȍsoba

Declension

Declension of faca

	singular	plural
nominative	faca	face
genitive	face	faca
dative	faci	facama
accusative	facu	face
vocative	faco	face
locative	faci	facama
instrumental	facom	facama

References

• “faca”, in Hrvatski jezični portal [Croatian language portal] (in Serbo-Croatian), 2006–2026

Spanish

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈfaka/ [ˈfa.ka]
• Rhymes: -aka
• Syllabification: fa‧ca

Noun

faca f (plural facas)

1. a curved knife

Derived terms

• facón

Further reading

• “faca”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8.1, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 15 December 2025