Factum

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A completed action or occurrence recognized as truth in various contexts
2. An event or action that has been carried out and acknowledged as factual
3. An act that has been performed and accepted as reality in different situations

Etymology: Latin "factum" is the neuter past participle of "facere," "to do" or "to make," so its basic sense was simply "a thing done." That literal meaning survives in English, where "fact" first meant a deed or action, and only later came to mean something known to be true. The sense of an accomplished real event, the one this noun carries here, grows out of that original idea of something actually done as opposed to merely intended or imagined. The English word "fact" is a borrowing of the same Latin noun, and it is closely related to "feat," which comes from the same source through Old French, and to "fashion" and "factory," which share the "facere" root. The English word itself is a borrowing rather than an inheritance, so its arrival reflects scholarly and legal Latin rather than everyday speech.