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I'm looking to refer to a group of facts and I'm not sure what the best term to use for them would be. From what I can tell there isn't any sort of standard collective noun for facts, so it's going to be a more a question of what the better way of stating it would be.

To illustrate, a collection of pages may make up a book, so a book of pages makes sense.

But what makes sense for a collection of facts?

Edit 1: to clarify here, I am looking to have the blank filled in: a _ of facts.

Edit 2: The context is that there are a large amount of small facts. Things like "The battle of Hastings was fought in 1066". I need to refer to various set collections of these facts when speaking to people, and so need a collective term for them. If each fact were a card, I would call a set collection of them a deck. So the use would be in a sentence like this: When I was learning history I found John's very useful.

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  • "Facts" are not things, or at least not physical things, and therefore must be referred to metaphorically. How you categorize and group the facts, and how the facts are perceived and described -- by you and by others -- depend very much on what metaphor you use. For facts, and ideas generally, the Conduit Metaphor is common, for instance. Dec 26, 2011 at 19:32
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    Technically, something whose elements are individual facts is referred to as information, as in 'latest information about sth.'. The trick is to embed the word information in a suitable sentence to convey the meaning clearly and unambiguously for the context.
    – Kris
    Dec 27, 2011 at 5:34
  • @Kris, you should put that in an answer. Dec 27, 2011 at 16:38
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    This question still needs more context. Right now, we have no way to choose the best answer between all the suggestions, because it really depends on what sort of facts and what sort of collection of them we're talking about. (More possibilities: data, stats, statistics, information...)
    – Marthaª
    Dec 27, 2011 at 19:28
  • @MonicaCellio: Tx, posted!
    – Kris
    Dec 28, 2011 at 5:33

8 Answers 8

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Consider brief, précis, survey, overview, conspectus, digest, compilation, compendium, collation, corpus. A brief, for example, is "An attorney's legal argument in written form..." but formerly was also used as "A summary, précis or epitome; an abridgement or abstract", which all are forms of collections of facts. Collation is a surprisingly versatile word, the relevant meaning here being "A collection, a gathering" rather than "5. Any light meal or snack" or more-specialized "2. The Collationes Patrum ...", "3. A reading held from the work mentioned above...", and "4. The light meal taken by monks after the reading service mentioned above". For survey the relevant meaning is "A particular view; an examination ... of all the parts or particulars of a thing", which is how it is used in the phrase survey article, "... a paper that is a work of synthesis, ... a survey or summary of a field".

Update 1 I disagree in general with the comment

Each of the above defines the way the facts have been compiled, the nature of the source, or something qualifie[d]. None of them seems to be an unqualified substitute for 'a collection of facts'. – Kris

but will address it only for compendium. Wiktionary shows "1. A short, complete summary; an abstract" and "2. A list or collection of various items". To a question like "Have you got anything about it?", one could reasonably reply either of

Here is a compendium of facts for you to look at.
Here is a compendium for you to look at.

but in the former "of facts" seems redundant.

Note, compendious is an adjective for which Wiktionary shows "1. containing a subset..., succinctly described; abridged and summarized" and "2. briefly describing a body of knowledge". Certainly the latter sense is appropriate for "collection of facts". On the other hand, the definition and synonyms of it inject a qualification of brevity.

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  • Each of the above defines the way the facts have been compiled, the nature of the source, or something qualifier. None of them seems to be an unqualified substitute for 'a collection of facts'.
    – Kris
    Dec 27, 2011 at 5:38
  • @Kris, see update Dec 27, 2011 at 16:10
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For empirical facts, you sometimes see data.

For more diverse facts, while it's not a single word, body of knowledge might be what you're looking for.

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  • Empirical facts? whatever is that, please? Empirical, facts, data, body of knowledge ... these are as different from each other as can be.
    – Kris
    Dec 27, 2011 at 5:36
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    @Kris, see: merriam-webster.com/dictionary/empirical . Empirical facts are observations (as opposed to deductions), so you see those kinds of facts in research reports, for instance. Dec 27, 2011 at 16:36
  • Facts happen to be empirical when derived from empirical data. Strictly speaking, it is the data that is empirical, which forms the basis for the facts. However, generally speaking, facts are understood/expected to be based on empirical data and not logically derived. I could convince you of something by way of logic but you may not accept it as a fact; if I show a concrete/ tangible proof, you will readily do so. So I said empirical facts is kind of stating the obvious.
    – Kris
    Dec 28, 2011 at 5:41
  • @Kris, I agree with your precision, but note that people use "facts" in a broader sense. I was trying to address that -- if OP means empirical data then use data, else for more general stuff body of knowledge would work better. Dec 28, 2011 at 16:28
  • Well, I could convince you of something by way of logic but... :)
    – Kris
    Dec 29, 2011 at 3:54
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More simply, you could just say, the truth.

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This page suggests a miscellany of facts.

Since nothing seems to be definitive, you could probably make one up that fits in with what you are writing about:

  • an inconvenience of facts (if you're Al Gore).
  • an over-abundance of facts (if you're confused by their number).
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Technically, something whose elements are individual facts is referred to as information, as in 'latest information about sth.'. The trick is to embed the word information in a suitable sentence to convey the meaning clearly and unambiguously for the context.

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Rudiments may be the answer to your question, the first simple facts or rules of anything. E.g.

to learn the rudiments of cookery.

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  • Rudiments is specifically the basics, i.e. the bare minimum you must know about a topic before you can talk intelligently about it. It does not apply to any random collection of facts.
    – Marthaª
    Dec 27, 2011 at 19:26
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A collection of facts, if large enough, may be called an archive.

The third definition on dictionary.com is "any extensive record or collection of data."

M-W's second definition is "a repository or collection especially of information."

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"Facts collection."

Since it is a collection of facts.

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