How to Use facile in a Sentence

facile

adjective
  • This problem needs more than just a facile solution.
  • He is a wonderfully facile writer.
  • What hangs in the air, rather, is the willingness of too many to make those facile comparisons.
    Zachary Karabell, Twin Cities, 26 Sep. 2019
  • Comparing red states and blue states this way is facile.
    Mona Charen, National Review, 5 Dec. 2019
  • The facile answer is to say that the public just isn’t performing enough tests.
    Benjamin Mazer, The Atlantic, 7 Dec. 2021
  • The facile argument here is that this justifies the high prices of new medicines.
    Matthew Herper, STAT, 2 Mar. 2020
  • The idea that things were working before this crisis is facile.
    Vicky Spratt, refinery29.com, 15 May 2020
  • This is not some attempt by A Red Orchid Theater to cash in on the facile haunted house craze.
    Chris Jones, chicagotribune.com, 22 Oct. 2019
  • The movie’s brief early scenes, leading up to the kidnapping, tag the three teens with facile identities.
    Richard Brody, The New Yorker, 27 Jan. 2017
  • It’s a book that doesn’t just describe the problem, but offers tools for working through it – not in a facile way, either.
    Barbara Vandenburgh, USA TODAY, 11 June 2020
  • The book, like Williams’s first, is a confused and confusing text, full of clichéd turns of phrase that match its facile conclusion.
    Hannah Giorgis, The Atlantic, 26 Oct. 2019
  • This one seems simple, but politics tends to muddy even the most facile of notions.
    Eliott C. McLaughlin, CNN, 22 Apr. 2020
  • Fromage!—but in the world of healthy eating, finding a meal that’s not breaded and covered in cheese is not exactly facile.
    Derek Blasberg, Vanities, 2 Mar. 2017
  • But Holmes was no slouch: a facile mythmaker who brooked no dissent and presided over the workplace from hell.
    Stephen Phillips, SFChronicle.com, 22 June 2018
  • It all moves along at a snappy enough pace, but sometimes feels more facile than insightful.
    New York Times, 5 June 2019
  • Molière is not our contemporary in some facile and fatuous way.
    Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker, 1 Feb. 2022
  • Its script proceeds merely to set up its reveals, which has the effect of shunting the dramatic weight of the movie to its rushed and facile ending.
    Richard Brody, The New Yorker, 17 May 2021
  • Many of the more facile claims made by Brexiteers have been disproved, at some cost to Britain’s reputation abroad.
    Fraser Nelson, WSJ, 23 Mar. 2018
  • Still, if Martin’s take on grief is facile, the movie overall is a pleasant trip, and Dean’s doodles — by Martin himself — are a treat.
    Neil Genzlinger, The Seattle Times, 14 June 2017
  • Melville shrank from atheism, and from all facile theisms.
    John Updike, Hugging the Shore, (1983) 1984
  • If the movie’s points can be well taken, its rhetorical strategies are often facile.
    Ben Kenigsberg, New York Times, 28 Apr. 2020
  • Industry segment, age, and race are all factors that complicate the numbers so many are ready to quote in a facile way.
    Erik Sherman, Forbes, 29 Aug. 2021
  • Shang-Chi’s central conflict goes beyond the classic one of good against evil, and far beyond the facile one of a son quarreling with his father.
    Shirley Li, The Atlantic, 23 Aug. 2021
  • Here is where some observers balk, contending that the Celebrant’s return to faith after all this seems too abrupt and facile.
    Howard Reich, chicagotribune.com, 21 July 2019
  • The social commentary comes in the form of facile, between-song patter from members of the hard-working ensemble.
    Andrea Simakis, cleveland.com, 13 May 2018
  • Unlike Race Williams, who praised himself and reminded readers that his shots never missed, the Op was much less facile and camera-ready.
    Susanna Lee, The Conversation, 1 Apr. 2020
  • The problem is, the debate usually devolves into a facile back and forth that edifies no one.
    Paul Daugherty, Cincinnati.com, 21 Mar. 2018
  • That movie, too, scrambles any facile race-versus-class dichotomy.
    A.o. Scott and Manohla Dargis, New York Times, 5 Jan. 2017
  • But Ligon is too subtle and grown-up to be making facile propaganda statements.
    Sebastian Smee, Washington Post, 28 July 2022
  • This is an overly facile answer, though, and likely not possible for the vast majority of this cohort.
    WIRED, 27 Sep. 2022

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'facile.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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