Meaning & use
facilitate
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Meanings
verbtransitive
To make something easier, smoother, or more likely to happen.
Grammar: Takes an object, never a person helped directly: facilitate a process.
Patterns
- facilitate something
- facilitate the process of something
A new app will facilitate communication between doctors.
The ramp facilitates access for wheelchair users.
Good lighting can facilitate learning.
verbtransitivebusiness
To lead a meeting, workshop, or discussion so that everyone takes part and goals are reached.
Grammar: Takes an object such as a workshop or a discussion.
Patterns
- facilitate a workshop
- facilitate a discussion
She will facilitate the planning workshop on Friday.
A neutral mediator facilitated the talks.
He facilitates a weekly support group.
Word forms
| third person singular | facilitates |
|---|---|
| past tense | facilitated |
| past participle | facilitated |
| -ing form | facilitating |
Common combinations
- facilitate learning
- Group projects facilitate learning.
- facilitate communication
- Video calls facilitate communication across offices.
- facilitate a discussion
- The teacher facilitated a discussion on the poem.
- facilitate trade
- The treaty aims to facilitate trade.
- facilitate access
- New roads facilitate access to rural areas.
- greatly facilitate
- Clear labels greatly facilitate sorting.
Synonyms and how they differ
- ease
- Ease is plainer and suits everyday speech, while facilitate sounds official.
- enable
- Enable means to make something possible at all, whereas facilitate means to make it easier.
- help
- Help is the everyday word and can take a person as the object, but facilitate cannot.
- promote
- Promote adds the idea of actively encouraging something to grow.
Opposites
Word family
- facilitator noun
- a person who guides a group process
- facilitation noun
- the act of making something easier
- facility noun
- a place or ease of doing something
- facile adjective
- too easy, or superficial
Commonly confused: facilitate or facilitate vs help?
facilitate vs facilitate vs help
You help a person but facilitate a process, so facilitate me is wrong.
Practice
Which sentence uses facilitate correctly?
Choose one answer.
Facilitate takes a process or thing as its object. It does not take a person, and it does not use to plus a verb.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “facilitate”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.