defect
/ˈdiːfɛkt/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: 3.68 in modern English
12
Scrabble Score
6
Letters
2
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A fault or malfunction.
noun
The quantity or amount by which anything falls short.
verb
To abandon or turn against; to cease or change one's loyalty, especially from a military organisation or political party.
Intransitive verb
Example Sentences
- "a defect in the ear or eye; a defect in timber or iron; a defect of memory or judgment"
- "Among boys little tenderness is shown to personal defects."
- "But ever since the concept of "hamartia" recurred through Aristotle's Poetics, in an attempt to describe man's ingrained iniquity, our impulse has been to identify a telling defect in those brought suddenly and dramatically low."
- "Another major defect of the current literature dealing with the nomenclature of hybrid forms of English is the scant attention paid to the question of frequency."
- "and the indefatigable application with which they have supplied the defects of early culture."
- "Capitalizing on the restive mood, Mr. Farage, the U.K. Independence Party leader, took out an advertisement in The Daily Telegraph this week inviting unhappy Tories to defect. In it Mr. Farage sniped that the Cameron government — made up disproportionately of career politicians who graduated from Eton and Oxbridge — was “run by a bunch of college kids, none of whom have ever had a proper job in their lives.”"
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *de Proto-Indo-European *-h₁ Proto-Indo-European *déh₁ Proto-Italic *dē Latin dē Latin de- Proto-Indo-European *dʰeh₁- Proto-Indo-European *dʰeh₁k- Proto-Indo-European *-yéti Proto-Indo-European *dʰh₁kyéti Proto-Italic *θakjō Proto-Italic *fakjō Latin facio Latin dēficiō Proto-Indo-European *-tus Proto-Italic *-tus Latin -tus Latin dēfectusbor. English defect Borrowed from Latin defectus (“a failure, lack”), from deficere (“to fail, lack, literally 'undo'”), from past participle defectus, from de- (“of, from”) + facere (“to do”).