deface
Americanverb (used with object)
-
defaces,
present (3rd person singular)
-
defaced,
past participle, past
-
defacing
present participle
-
to mar the surface or appearance of; disfigure.
to deface a wall by writing on it.
- Synonyms:
- spoil
-
to efface, obliterate, or injure the surface of, as to make illegible or invalid.
to deface a bond.
verb
Synonym Usage
See mar.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
defacesimple
-
defacessimple
-
have defacedperfect
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has defacedperfect
-
am defacingprogressive
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are defacingprogressive
-
is defacingprogressive
-
have been defacingperfect progressive
-
has been defacingperfect progressive
Past
-
defacedsimple
-
had defacedperfect
-
was defacingprogressive
-
were defacingprogressive
-
had been defacingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of deface
1275–1325; Middle English defacen, from Old French desfacier, equivalent to des- dis- 1 + facier ( face face + -ier infinitive suffix)
Explanation
If you deface something, you've blemished or disfigured it in some way. For example, graffiti can deface a statue. To deface something means to damage it or just mess up its appearance. And sometimes it’s both: Throwing a cup of coffee on a valuable painting ruins the face of the painting, so we say it's been defaced. Drawing a mustache on a painting is another way to deface it. What did the Mona Lisa say to the museum visitor holding a marker? “Don’t mess up deface!”
Vocabulary lists containing deface
Hoot
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The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
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Swing
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Despite the dismissal, Burgum vowed that the administration “won’t back down to deranged people who want to destroy, deface, or degrade our monuments.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 1, 2026
"The evidence is clear, vandals have repeatedly caused damage to the Reflecting Pool," Burgum posted on X. "We won't back down to deranged people who want to destroy, deface, or degrade our monuments."
From Barron's ● Aug. 1, 2026
She’s an aesthete run amok, determined to deface anything that doesn’t live up to her impossible standards.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 25, 2026
He even intends to deface the entire White House complex with a 90,000-square-foot ballroom, Versailles as reimagined by Tony Soprano.
From Salon ● Aug. 9, 2025
One neighbor trained his dog to deface Patterson’s property.
From "The Autobiography of Malcolm X" by Alex Malcolm X;Hailey
Like the art it defaces, protest must evolve to stay relevant.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 10, 2024
The extreme one offered here frequently defaces it.
From New York Times ● Apr. 21, 2024
She then strips and defaces a portrait of her husband.
From Slate ● Oct. 16, 2018
The twist: Huckins defaces these replicas with cyber-slang text and smartphone icons, painted as neatly as the portraits themselves.
From Seattle Times ● Oct. 10, 2017
The lower comedy of the play is identical in motive with that which defaces the master-work of Ford: more stupid and offensive it hardly could be.
From The Age of Shakespeare by Algernon Charles Swinburne
The artwork is largely undisturbed however its plinth has been defaced with a spray-painted tag.
From BBC ● Sep. 28, 2026
But on Monday, vandals scratched the star, which was dedicated in 1984, leaving Parton's name badly defaced, with video on social media showing the damage.
From Barron's ● Sep. 2, 2026
Equipped with super glue and expanding foam, the mystery vigilante has defaced dozens of newly installed parking meters across North Berwick.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 6, 2026
The Stryker incident saw the company's employee login defaced with a message claiming data had been erased in a 'wiper' attack by the Iran-backed group of hacktivists.
From BBC ● Mar. 27, 2026
What is certain is that the site was vacated and the stelae defaced and the sculptures decapitated.
From "1491" by Charles C. Mann
Who knew that defacing images of Satan was a popular cultural practice at the time?
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 26, 2026
Later that year, in October, an Extinction Rebellion activist was ordered to pay more than £1,500 for defacing the statue by painting "racist" on its plinth during a climate protest.
From BBC ● Feb. 27, 2026
San Francisco police have arrested a man accused of defacing the famed Pink Triangle, a symbol of LGBTQ+ rights that is installed annually during Pride Month on top of the city’s landmark Twin Peaks.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 18, 2025
Other climate protesters around the world have taken to defacing works of art hanging in museums, but a spokesman for the New York group said that it had not engaged in that particular protest tactic.
From New York Times ● Mar. 15, 2024
It was defacing, it was taking away someone’s face.
From "Cat's Eye" by Margaret Atwood
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
