defect

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a failing or deficiency

   that interpretation is an unfortunate defect of our lack of information

2. 2
   noun

   an imperfection in a bodily system

   visual defects

3. 3
   noun

   A fault or malfunction.

   a defect in the ear or eye; a defect in timber or iron; a defect of memory or judgment

4. 4
   noun

   The quantity or amount by which anything falls short.

   and the indefatigable application with which they have supplied the defects of early culture.

5. 5
   verb

   To abandon or turn against; to cease or change one's loyalty, especially from a military organisation or political party.

   Capitalizing on the restive mood, Mr. Farage, the U.K. Independence Party leader, took out an advertisement in The Daily Telegraph this week inviting unhappy Tories to defect. In it Mr. Farage sniped that the Cameron government — made up disproportionately of career politicians who graduated from Eton and Oxbridge — was “run by a bunch of college kids, none of whom have ever had a proper job in their lives.”

6. 6
   verb

   To flee one's country and seek asylum.

   Passing through Thailand, she submitted a handwritten statement agreeing to defect, a requirement for North Korean refugees to be allowed to enter the South.

7. 7
   noun

   a mark or flaw that spoils the appearance of something (especially on a person's body)

8. 8
   noun

   an imperfection in an object or machine

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin defectus (“a failure, lack”), from deficere (“to fail, lack, literally 'undo'”), from past participle defectus, from de- (“of, from”) + facere (“to do”).