defective
defective Lexical Profile
defective Game Scores & Validity
• adjective
Imperfect, faulty, or failing to function properly due to a flaw in design, construction, or condition.
"The manufacturer issued an immediate recall after discovering that thousands of vehicles had defective brakes."
Lacking a required element, legal validity, or normal standard of completeness.
"The appellate court dismissed the lawsuit because the original contract was legally defective."
(Of a word, especially a verb or noun) lacking one or more of the usual grammatical inflected forms.
"In English grammar, modal auxiliaries like 'must' and 'ought' are classified as defective verbs because they lack infinitive and participle forms."
• noun
A manufactured item or product that has a flaw or fails quality control standards.
"The quality assurance inspector sorted through the batch and set aside all the defectives for recycling."
(Dated, offensive) A person who has a severe physical, developmental, or cognitive impairment.
"Early twentieth-century institutional records frequently used the outdated clinical label of mental defectives."
Word Nuance & Usage
As a noun referring to a person with a physical or cognitive impairment, 'defective' is archaic and offensive in modern English; contemporary clinical or neutral terms should be used instead.
• Rhymes for defective
• Nearby Words
Word Origin & Etymology
Borrowed in late Middle English from Old French 'defectif' or directly from Late Latin 'defectivus', derived from the past participle stem of Latin 'deficere' ('to fail, fall short, or desert'), from 'de-' ('away from') and 'facere' ('to make or do').