Source : Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)

Fact \Fact\, n. [L. factum, fr. facere to make or do. Cf.
   {Feat}, {Affair}, {Benefit}, {Defect}, {Fashion}, and {-fy}.]
   1. A doing, making, or preparing. [Obs.]

            A project for the fact and vending Of a new kind of
            fucus, paint for ladies.              --B. Jonson.

   2. An effect produced or achieved; anything done or that
      comes to pass; an act; an event; a circumstance.

            What might instigate him to this devilish fact, I am
            not able to conjecture.               --Evelyn.

            He who most excels in fact of arms.   --Milton.

   3. Reality; actuality; truth; as, he, in fact, excelled all
      the rest; the fact is, he was beaten.

   4. The assertion or statement of a thing done or existing;
      sometimes, even when false, improperly put, by a transfer
      of meaning, for the thing done, or supposed to be done; a
      thing supposed or asserted to be done; as, history abounds
      with false facts.

            I do not grant the fact.              --De Foe.

            This reasoning is founded upon a fact which is not
            true.                                 --Roger Long.

   Note: TheTerm fact has in jurisprudence peculiar uses in
         contrast with low; as, attorney at low, and attorney in
         fact; issue in low, and issue in fact. There is also a
         grand distinction between low and fact with reference
         to the province of the judge and that of the jury, the
         latter generally determining the fact, the former the
         low. --Burrill Bouvier.

   {Accessary before}, or {after}, {the fact}. See under
      {Accessary}.

   {Matter of fact}, an actual occurrence; a verity; used
      adjectively: of or pertaining to facts; prosaic;
      unimaginative; as, a matter-of-fact narration.

   Syn: Act; deed; performance; event; incident; occurrence;
        circumstance.