defective
/dɪˈfɛktɪv/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: 3.57 in modern English
18
Scrabble Score
9
Letters
3
Syllables
7
Unique Chars
Meaning
adj
Not capable of representing all the phonemic distinctions of a language it is used to write.
adj
Spelled without matres lectionis, for example אמץ (ómets, “courage”) as opposed to the plene spelling אומץ where the letter vav ⟨ו⟩ indicates the vowel o.
adv
Without matres lectionis (letters indicating vowels) written out.
noun
A person or thing considered to be defective.
noun
A word written without matres lectionis (letters indicating vowels).
Example Sentences
- "If the workmanship is defective, they'll replace the shoes with a new pair."
- "Artillery officers sometimes have defective hearing."
- "It is likely that the long evolutionary trajectory of Mycoplasma went from a reductive autotroph to oxidative heterotroph to a cell-wall–defective degenerate parasite. This evolutionary trajectory assumes the simplicity to complexity route of biogenesis, a point of view that is not universally accepted."
- "For the sake of comparison, note the distribution of these spellings in some other Hebrew sources: in the MT the vowel o after the first consonant of the root is written defective in approximately 3,600 cases as against 850 cases of plene spelling."
- "It is an offence, subject to the exception mentioned in this section, for a person to procure a woman who is a defective to have unlawful sexual intercourse in any part of the world."
- "There were many more kinds of mental institutions at mid-century, ones for "mental defectives and epileptics" and the mentally retarded, psychiatric wards in veterans hospitals, as well as "psychopathic" and private mental hospitals."
Etymology
From Middle English defectif, defective, from Old French defectif, from Late Latin dēfectīvus.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: defectif, dēfectīvus
Regional Pronunciation
- British English: /dɪˈfɛktɪv/