imperfect

comparative more imperfect · superlative most imperfect

1. Not perfect.

   Why, then, your other senses grow imperfect.

   c. 1603–1606, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of King Lear”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene vi]

   2 more examples

   Nothing imperfet or deficient left Of all that he Created.

   1667, John Milton, “Book VIII”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC

   Then say not man's imperfect, Heaven in fault; / Say rather, man's as perfect as he ought.

   1733, [Alexander Pope], An Essay on Man. […], (please specify |epistle=I to IV), London: […] J[ohn] Wilford, […], →OCLC

   Synonyms: defective, fallible, faultful, faulty · Antonyms: faultless, infallible, perfect

2. biologyUnisexual: having either male (with stamens) or female (with pistil) flowers, but not with both.

   Antonyms: perfect

3. biologyKnown or expected to be polyphyletic, as of a form taxon.
4. grammarRepresenting a continuing or repeated action.
5. obsoleteLacking some elementary organ that is essential to successful or normal activity.

   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.

   1653, “Twenty-five Sermons Preached at Golden Grove; Being for the Winter Half-year, […]: Sermon III. [Doomsday Book; or, Christ’s Advent to Judgment.] Part III.”, in Reginald Heber, editor, The Whole Works of the Right Rev. Jeremy Taylor, D.D. […], volume V, London: Ogle, Duncan, and Co. […]; and Richard Priestley, […], published 1822, →OCLC, page 35

plural imperfects

1. Something having a minor flaw.
2. grammarA tense of verbs used in describing a past action that is incomplete or continuous.

   Synonyms: past imperfect tense, past imperfect, preterimperfect

present singular third person imperfects · participle present imperfecting · participle past imperfected · past imperfected

1. transitiveto make imperfect

   Time, which perfects some things, imperfects also others.

   1716, Thomas Browne, edited by Samuel Johnson, Christian Morals, 2nd edition, London: J. Payne, published 1756, Part I, p. 43

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   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.

   […] such was their desire for greater rhythmic freedom that composers began to use red notes as well. […] Their value was […] restricted at first, for redness implies the imperfecting of a note which is perfect if black […]

   1962, Alec Harman, Wilfrid Mellers, Man and His Music: The Story of Musical Experience in the West, Oxford University Press, Part I, Chapter 5, p. 126