Faex

Faex is a Latin noun meaning dregs, lees, or sediment that settles at the bottom of liquids such as wine, oil, or metal preparations. It originates from the Latin root faex/faecis and is related to the modern English term feces (often spelled faeces), though the semantic fields differ across time.

In classical and medieval Latin texts, faex referred to the insoluble residue remaining after clarification or refinement and was commonly discussed in contexts such as winemaking, distillation, and metallurgy. In viticulture, the lees (faex) were sometimes collected for disposal, used as fertilizer, or processed for flavoring or other treatments in certain practices. In alchemical and early chemical literature, faex appeared as a technical term for residues produced by processing metals, salts, or ores, and it was sometimes used metaphorically to denote impurities or corruption.

Today the word is largely historical or scholarly and is primarily encountered in dictionaries, Latin glossaries, or discussions of ancient texts. It is not part of standard modern vocabulary outside specialized studies, though it remains a useful term for understanding classical and medieval descriptions of industrial and artisanal processes.

See also: faeces, faecal, faex (in Latin dictionaries), lees.