Word origin · etymology
Latin facies, ‘form, appearance, or face.’
The Latin lexical sense supports the English word's ancestry. The supplied sources do not establish a complete transmission history from facies to this astrological technical sense, so that history is left open.
How we know · epistemology
Historical zodiacal subdivision and rulership convention
Within this use, a face follows a declared ten-degree zodiac partition and table. It is not the ordinary word for a human face, and it is not automatically the Egyptian stellar-decan system; shared names do not make their sources, stars, or interpretations interchangeable.
William Lilly, Christian Astrology (1647), original printed p104 ↗William Lilly: Christian Astrology (1647), original text, pp. 101–112 ↗Metropolitan Museum: Senenmut astronomical ceiling ↗
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