perfectibility
Americannoun
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the quality or state of being able to be made perfect or free of defects.
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the quality or state of being able to be improved.
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.
Johnson’s faith in human perfectibility, he told me, inspired him to work to regain his strength.
From Los Angeles Times • Feb. 5, 2024
The noun “parent” has become a verb as many people embrace the belief that perfectibility can be approximated if parents are sufficiently diligent about child-rearing.
From Washington Post • Mar. 15, 2023
Some see this as a triumph, progress towards the elimination of error and perfectibility.
From The Guardian • May 7, 2020
With its myth of endless progress, America has always embraced obsolescence and presumed the perfectibility of the future.
From New York Times • Nov. 19, 2018
Embedded in the history of the gene is “the quest for eternal youth, the Faustian myth of abrupt reversal of fortune, and our own century’s flirtation with the perfectibility of man.”
From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee
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.
