FACTION

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does faction mean? 

• FACTION (noun)
  The noun FACTION has 2 senses:

1. a clique (often secret) that seeks power usually through intrigue

2. a dissenting clique

  Familiarity information: FACTION used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• FACTION (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A clique (often secret) that seeks power usually through intrigue

Classified under:

Nouns denoting groupings of people or objects

Synonyms:

cabal; camarilla; faction; junto

Hypernyms ("faction" is a kind of...):

camp; clique; coterie; ingroup; inner circle; pack (an exclusive circle of people with a common purpose)

Meronyms (members of "faction"):

cabalist (a member of a cabal)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A dissenting clique

Classified under:

Nouns denoting groupings of people or objects

Synonyms:

faction; sect

Hypernyms ("faction" is a kind of...):

camp; clique; coterie; ingroup; inner circle; pack (an exclusive circle of people with a common purpose)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "faction"):

splinter group (a faction or sect that has broken away from its parent organization)

left; left wing (those who support varying degrees of social or political or economic change designed to promote the public welfare)

right; right wing (those who support political or social or economic conservatism; those who believe that things are better left unchanged)

old guard (a faction that is unwilling to accept new ideas)

pro-choice faction (those who argue that the decision to have an induced abortion should be made by the mother)

pro-life faction (those who argue that induced abortion is killing and should be prohibited)

Derivation:

factious (dissenting (especially dissenting with the majority opinion))

 Context examples 

If any town should engage in rebellion or mutiny, fall into violent factions, or refuse to pay the usual tribute, the king has two methods of reducing them to obedience.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

It is a very justifiable cause of a war, to invade a country after the people have been wasted by famine, destroyed by pestilence, or embroiled by factions among themselves.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

For, said he, as flourishing a condition as we may appear to be in to foreigners, we labour under two mighty evils: a violent faction at home, and the danger of an invasion, by a most potent enemy, from abroad.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

For, as to that infamous practice of acquiring great employments by dancing on the ropes, or badges of favour and distinction by leaping over sticks and creeping under them, the reader is to observe, that they were first introduced by the grandfather of the emperor now reigning, and grew to the present height by the gradual increase of party and faction.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

For he argued thus: that the two half brains being left to debate the matter between themselves within the space of one skull, would soon come to a good understanding, and produce that moderation, as well as regularity of thinking, so much to be wished for in the heads of those, who imagine they come into the world only to watch and govern its motion: and as to the difference of brains, in quantity or quality, among those who are directors in faction, the doctor assured us, from his own knowledge, that it was a perfect trifle.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

I desired you would let me know, by a letter, when party and faction were extinguished; judges learned and upright; pleaders honest and modest, with some tincture of common sense, and Smithfield blazing with pyramids of law books; the young nobility’s education entirely changed; the physicians banished; the female Yahoos abounding in virtue, honour, truth, and good sense; courts and levees of great ministers thoroughly weeded and swept; wit, merit, and learning rewarded; all disgracers of the press in prose and verse condemned to eat nothing but their own cotton, and quench their thirst with their own ink.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

He was perfectly astonished with the historical account gave him of our affairs during the last century; protesting it was only a heap of conspiracies, rebellions, murders, massacres, revolutions, banishments, the very worst effects that avarice, faction, hypocrisy, perfidiousness, cruelty, rage, madness, hatred, envy, lust, malice, and ambition, could produce.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

I had no occasion of bribing, flattering, or pimping, to procure the favour of any great man, or of his minion; I wanted no fence against fraud or oppression: here was neither physician to destroy my body, nor lawyer to ruin my fortune; no informer to watch my words and actions, or forge accusations against me for hire: here were no gibers, censurers, backbiters, pickpockets, highwaymen, housebreakers, attorneys, bawds, buffoons, gamesters, politicians, wits, splenetics, tedious talkers, controvertists, ravishers, murderers, robbers, virtuosos; no leaders, or followers, of party and faction; no encouragers to vice, by seducement or examples; no dungeon, axes, gibbets, whipping-posts, or pillories; no cheating shopkeepers or mechanics; no pride, vanity, or affectation; no fops, bullies, drunkards, strolling whores, or poxes; no ranting, lewd, expensive wives; no stupid, proud pedants; no importunate, overbearing, quarrelsome, noisy, roaring, empty, conceited, swearing companions; no scoundrels raised from the dust upon the merit of their vices, or nobility thrown into it on account of their virtues; no lords, fiddlers, judges, or dancing-masters.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

For having strictly examined all the persons of greatest name in the courts of princes, for a hundred years past, I found how the world had been misled by prostitute writers, to ascribe the greatest exploits in war, to cowards; the wisest counsel, to fools; sincerity, to flatterers; Roman virtue, to betrayers of their country; piety, to atheists; chastity, to sodomites; truth, to informers: how many innocent and excellent persons had been condemned to death or banishment by the practising of great ministers upon the corruption of judges, and the malice of factions: how many villains had been exalted to the highest places of trust, power, dignity, and profit: how great a share in the motions and events of courts, councils, and senates might be challenged by bawds, whores, pimps, parasites, and buffoons.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)