imperfection

I

(New American Roget's College Thesaurus)

Lack of perfection

Nouns

1. imperfection, imperfectness, incompleteness, faultiness; deficiency; inadequacy, insufficiency, peccancy (see badness); immaturity; mediocrity, shortcoming, inferiority; ugliness. Slang, lemon law. See disorder.

2. fault, defect, weak point; mar, blemish; flaw, snag, taint, stigma, attainder; bar sinister; weakness; half-blood; failing, foible, feet of clay; drawback, catch. Informal, no great shakes; fly in the ointment. Slang, bug, kludge.

3. deformity, disfigurement (see distortion).

Verbs

1. not measure up, not pass muster, fall or come short, miss the mark, not come up to par.

2. impair, damage, mar (see deterioration).

Adjectives

1. imperfect, deficient, defective; faulty, unsound, tainted; crude, jerry-built; out of order, out of tune; cracked, leaky; sprung; warped (see distortion); lame, injured (see deterioration); peccant, bad (see badness); frail, weak, infirm; below par. Informal, not up to scratch, not much to boast of. Slang, on the blink; fouled (up), snafu.

2. blemished, pitted, discolored, impaired, marred, deformed.

Adverbs — imperfectly, almost, to a limited extent, rather (see littleness); pretty, only; considering, all things considered (see nearness).

Phrases — no rose without a thorn.

Quotations — Thou art weighed in the balance, and art found wanting (Bible).

Antonyms, see perfection.

II

(Roget's IV) n.

Syn. defect, fault, flaw, shortcoming; see blemish , defect 2 .

See Synonym Study at defect .

III

(Roget's 3 Superthesaurus) n.

flaw, fault, defect, deficiency, failing, blemish, shortcoming, malformation, weakness, inadequacy, disfigurement.

ANT.: perfection, faultlessness

IV

(Roget's Thesaurus II) noun Something that mars the appearance or causes inadequacy or failure: blemish, bug, defect, fault, flaw, shortcoming. See BEAUTIFUL, BETTER, HELP.