Imperfect
adj, noun, verb ·Common ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 Something having a minor flaw.
- 2 a tense of verbs used in describing action that is on-going wordnet
- 3 A tense of verbs used in describing a past action that is incomplete or continuous.
- 1 to make imperfect transitive
"1651, John Donne, Letter to Henry Goodere, in Letters to Severall Persons of Honour, edited by Charles Edmund Merrill, Jr., New York: Sturgis & Walton, 1910, I write to you from the Spring Garden, whither I withdrew my self to think of this; and the intensenesse of my thinking ends in this, that by my help Gods work should be imperfected, if by any means I resisted the amasement."
- 1 Not perfect,
"Why, then, your other senses grow imperfect."
- 2 Unisexual: having either male (with stamens) or female (with pistil) flowers, but not with both.
- 3 Known or expected to be polyphyletic, as of a form taxon.
- 4 Representing a continuing or repeated action.
- 5 Lacking some elementary organ that is essential to successful or normal activity. obsolete
"When the prophet Joel was describing the formidable accidents in the day of the Lord's judgment, and the fearful sentence of an angry Judge, he was not able to express it, but stammered like a child, or an amazed, imperfect person."
- 1 wanting in moral strength, courage, or will; having the attributes of man as opposed to e.g. divine beings wordnet
- 2 not perfect; defective or inadequate wordnet
Antonyms
All antonymsExample
More examples"As your goods for which you are charging us were imperfect, we will not pay this account."
Etymology
From Middle English imperfit, from Old French imparfit (modern French imparfait), from Latin imperfectus. Spelling modified 15c. to conform Latin etymology. See im- + perfect.
Related phrases
More for "imperfect"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.