1629 P. Bell Let. Mar. in V. A. Ives Rich Papers: Lett. Bermuda (1984) 316 But by this meanes & occasione Painters fiery & facttious spirit is enkindled so that he hath underhand wrought a factionell partye to himself against me.

1650 N. Ward Discolliminium 16 It must be a National Necessity, and not a Partiall or Factionall.

1783 J. Price Vindic. Gen. Richard Smith iii. 77 We shall soon, from our follies and factional squabbles about power, sink in the eyes of all the world.

1832 Fraser's Mag. 4 647 Aiding..the independent part of society..and balancing the interested and factional parts.

1883 American 22 Sept. 373/1 There was a noticeable absence of many of the older factional leaders.

1920 H. E. Waits Pract. Probl. School (1921) xiii. 228 Often the factional differences in communities originate over the most trivial matters.

1956 R. A. Dahl Pref. Democratic Theory 29 Whether or not the majority is factional is irrelevant to the operation of the restrictions imposed by the existence of a numerous, extended, and diverse electorate.

2009 A. G. Walder Fractured Rebellion ix. 223 The longer the central authorities took to decide whether to sanction a power seizure, the longer the factional fighting lasted.

1904 N.Y. Evening Post 5 July 5 At his left sat the Harrison factionals of Chicago.

1952 E. Voegelin New Sci. of Politics iii. 101 The Christians..are factionals in religion and metaphysics.

2004 J. J. McGlennon in J. A. Clark & C. L. Prysby Southern Polit. Party Activists vii. 103 When describing their attachment to their state and national parties, factionals were much less likely to identify themselves as close to either their state or local party.

1978 Washington Post 30 July a3/2 Sigmund Freud, who only recently has been linked with Holmes in a factional drama about drug abuse, ironically played a leading role in public usage of cocaine.

1979 Clio (Indiana Univ.) 8 421 In an age where such factional television programs as ‘The Raid on Entebbe’..and 'Roots' are typical, the absorption of a wide range of non-fiction into fiction is not surprising.

1982 A. Rodway Craft of Critic. 191 Not all literary works are admitted fictions: witness, for example, purportedly autobiographical, or moral, or descriptive poems—or the new ‘factional’ novels.

1994 Sunday Times 6 Mar. ix. 54/6 [The] film, adapted..from Thomas Keneally's ‘factional’ account of Oskar Schindler,..is a towering achievement.

2001 Times 31 Aug. ii. 31/6 Perhaps even now some sharp young journalist is working on the factional novelisation, complete with film rights.