DEFECTIVE • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Defective

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/dɪfˈɛktɪv/ Listen

adjective

Defective adj.

Wanting in something; incomplete; lacking a part; deficient; imperfect; faulty; applied either to natural or moral qualities; as, a defective limb; defective timber; a defective copy or account; a defective character; defective rules.

(Gram.) Lacking some of the usual forms of declension or conjugation; as, a defective noun or verb.

noun

Defective n.

Anything that is defective or lacking in some respect.

(Med.) One who is lacking physically or mentally. Note: Under the term defectives are included deaf-mutes, the blind, the feeble-minded, the insane, and sometimes, esp. in criminology, criminals and paupers.

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Etymology of 'Defective'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Defective" Quotes from Famous Books

... very often personal. To imagine that the same mode of procedure, or "method," is applicable to all voices, is as unreasonable as to expect that the same medicament will apply to all maladies. In imparting a correct emission of voice, science has not infrequently to efface the results of a previous defective use, inherent or acquired, of the vocal organ. Hence, although the object to be attained is in every case the same, the modus operandi will vary infinitely. Nor should these most important branches of Classification and Production be entrusted—as ...

— Style in Singing • W. E. Haslam

... duties on the cotton. This application being placed in the hands of the Treasury agent, I was requested to call in two hours. I did so, and was then put off two hours longer. Thus I spent two whole days in frequent visits to that official. His memory was most defective, as I was obliged to introduce myself on each occasion, and tell him the object ...

— Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field • Thomas W. Knox

... editions has its advantages and disadvantages. The colored edition of 1887, having been worked over by hand, in lithography, is defective in various places, both as regards the black of the figures and glyphs, and in the colors. Coloring exists on the original codex which was not reproduced at all in the edition, and the colors given ...

— Commentary Upon the Maya-Tzental Perez Codex - with a Concluding Note Upon the Linguistic Problem of the Maya Glyphs • William E. Gates

... made by one of Stephenson's own foremen, and differed little from the Killingworth style of locomotive. It was rather over weight, but it ran at times as fast as fourteen miles per hour. Its machinery was defective, however, and it was ruled out ...

— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various

... thought it a story concerted between Glumdalclitch and her father, who had taught me a set of words to make me sell at a better price. Upon this imagination, he put several other questions to me, and still received rational answers: no otherwise defective than by a foreign accent, and an imperfect knowledge in the language, with some rustic phrases which I had learned at the farmer's house, and did not suit the ...

— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift

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