Defect

How to spell defect

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce defect

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does defect mean?

1. nounA fault or imperfection that prevents something from being correct or complete.
2. verbTo abandon one's country, party, or cause in order to join an opposing one.

Defect in a sentence

• noun

  The inspector found a hairline defect in the casting.

• verb

  The scientist chose to defect to the West during the conference.

• noun

  The manufacturer recalled every car with the same wiring defect.

• verb

  Several senior players threatened to defect to a rival club.

Where does defect come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word descends from the Latin defectus, a noun meaning 'a failure' or 'a falling short', which itself came from the verb deficere, 'to fail, to desert, or to fall away'. That verb was built from de-, meaning 'down' or 'away', joined to facere, 'to do' or 'to make', so the underlying image is of something that has 'undone' itself or come up short. English took the word in during the 1400s, first in the sense of a flaw or imperfection where something falls short of what it should be. The same facere root, which keeps its hard 'c' sound spelled as 'ct' here, also surfaces in relatives like 'perfect', 'effect', and 'manufacture'. The later political sense, to abandon one's country or cause, revives the older Latin idea of deserting, and it explains why the noun stresses the first syllable while the verb stresses the second.

How the word is built

• de- (down, away)
• fect (from facere: to do, make); literally 'a falling short'