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art; 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.

Not defective; perfect; complete. "Absolute, indefective obedience." South.

To go astray; to diverge. [R.] Their own defective and aberrating vision. De Quincey.

Not defective; complete; as, an acatalectic verse. -- n.

The division or defective coherence of an organ that is usually entire.

In the style of an amateur; superficial or defective like the work of an amateur. -- Am`a*teur"ish*ly, adv. -- Am`a*teur"ish*ness, n.

Nonsecretion or defective secretion of urine; ischury.

Defective digestion, indigestion. Coxe.

physical or moral; injurious, hurtful, inconvenient, offensive, painful, unfavorable, or defective, either physically or morally; evil; vicious; wicked; -- the opposite of good; as a bad man; bad conduct; bad habits; bad soil; bad health; bad crop; bad news.

ity; to injure or impair, as anything which is well formed, or excellent; to mar, or make defective, either the body or mind. Sin is a soil which blemisheth the beauty of thy soul. Brathwait.

To overwhelm by argument; to refute conclusively; to prove or show to be false or defective; to overcome; to silence.

An opinion, or judgment, formed on defective or presumptive evidence; probable inference; surmise; guess; suspicion. He [Herodotus] would thus have corrected his first loose conjecture by a real study of nature. Whewell. Conjectures, fancies, built on nothing firm. Milton.

, to make up completeness; wanting, as regards a requirement; not sufficient; inadequate; defective; imperfect; incomplete; lacking; as, deficient parts; deficient estate; deficient strength; deficient in judgment. The style was indeed deficient in ease and variety. Macaulay. Deficient number. (Arith.) See under Abunda…

Furnishing or giving two colors; -- said of defective vision, in which all the compound colors are resolvable into two elements instead of three. Sir J. Herschel.

Leakage or loss of currents from the conducting wires, caused by defective insulation. Escape pipe (Steam Boilers), a pipe for carrying away steam that escapes through a safety valve. -- Escape valve (Steam Engine), a relief valve; a safety valve. See under Relief, and Safety. -- Escape wheel (Horol.), the wheel of a…

Without fault; not defective or imperfect; free from blemish; free from incorrectness, vice, or offense; perfect; as, a faultless poem. Whoever thinks a faultless piece to see, Thinks what ne'er was, nor is, nor e'er shall be. Pope.

Full of flaws or cracks; broken; defective; faulty. Johnson.

lly; essentially; radically; at the foundation; in origin or constituents. "Fundamentally defective." Burke.

To have an irregular rhythm; to be defective. The blank verse shall halt for it. Shak.

ies and perfections which are usually seen in different individuals, excluding everything defective or unseemly, so as to form a type or model of the species. Thus, the Apollo Belvedere is the ideal of the beauty and proportion of the human frame. Fleming. Beau ideal. See Beau ideal.