defective
Americanadjective
-
Sometimes defected having a defect or flaw; faulty; imperfect.
a defective machine.
- Synonyms:
- deficient, incomplete
-
Psychology. characterized by subnormal intelligence or behavior.
-
Grammar. (of an inflected word or its inflection) lacking one or more of the inflected forms proper to most words of the same class in the language, as English must, which occurs only in the present tense.
noun
adjective
-
having a defect or flaw; imperfect; faulty
-
(of a person) below the usual standard or level, esp in intelligence
-
grammar (of a word) lacking the full range of inflections characteristic of its form class, as for example must, which has no past tense
Other Word Forms
- defectively adverb
- defectiveness noun
- nondefective adjective
- nondefectively adverb
- nondefectiveness noun
- predefective adjective
- undefective adjective
- undefectively adverb
- undefectiveness noun
Etymology
Origin of defective
First recorded in 1375–1425; from Late Latin dēfectīvus, equivalent to dēfectus ( defect ) + -īvus -ive; replacing Middle English defectif, from Middle French, from Late Latin, as above
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.
He said: "The department's debt is very large indeed and it is a debt which has been incurred through the supply of defective equipment at a time of national crisis."
From BBC
“They’ve made no showing for why the agreement was defective or why anything else was needed to ensure compliance going forward.”
From Salon
Humberside Police said officers had noticed a vehicle with a defective rear brake light at about 20:25 GMT.
From BBC
These tools enabled them to examine the atomic structure of the defective graphene, confirm the presence of the engineered defects and determine how they influenced the material's chemical and electronic behavior.
From Science Daily
However, this admission hasn’t softened the blow, seeing as company has suffered some topline and gross margin impact from discarding defective products during the production process, Wood noted.
From Barron's
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.
