Dictionaries › English

defective

Pronunciation: /dɪˈfɛktɪv/

The English word “defective” has 8 meanings listed here.

adjective

  1. Having one or more defects.
  2. Lacking some forms; e.g., having only one tense or being usable only in the third person.
  3. Having a root whose final consonant is weak (ي, و, or ء).
  4. Not capable of representing all the phonemic distinctions of a language it is used to write.
  5. Spelled without matres lectionis, for example אמץ (ómets, “courage”) as opposed to the plene spelling אומץ where the letter vav ⟨ו⟩ indicates the vowel o.

adverb

  1. Without matres lectionis (letters indicating vowels) written out.

noun

  1. A person or thing considered to be defective.
  2. A word written without matres lectionis (letters indicating vowels).

Etymology

From Middle English defectif, defective, from Old French defectif, from Late Latin dēfectīvus.

Keep exploring: in the interactive dictionary every word of a definition is a link. Open “defective” there

More English words

About this dictionary

The English dictionary on Glottosphere has 650,529 entries with a page. Browse the English dictionary.

Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.