Facilitates

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. To simplify a task or process while also encouraging development or progress, and enabling individuals to accomplish aims with greater ease
2. To help a task or activity happen more smoothly by reducing obstacles or difficulties
3. To assist in the progress or completion of something by providing support or resources

Etymology: "Facilitates" is the third-person singular form of "facilitate," which means to make an action or process easier to carry out. The verb is an English adaptation of the French "faciliter," itself formed from the Latin adjective "facilis," meaning "easy" or "doable." The English ending "-ate" is a common verb-forming suffix, borrowed along with many Latin-derived verbs, that turned the French stem into a form English could use. The word therefore carries its core idea directly in its ancestry: to facilitate something is to make it facile, or easy to accomplish. The Latin "facilis" is also the source of the English "facile," which once meant something close to "easy to do" and later came to describe something done too easily, with a sense of superficiality. "Facilitate" kept the original, more neutral sense, so the two words share a root but have drifted apart in tone.

Synonyms: enables, assists, aids

Antonyms: hinders, obstructs