Word.ws English Dictionary

defectious

UK/dɪˈfɛkʃəs/

defectious adjective: defective, having defects.

Adjective

defectious (comparative more defectious, superlative most defectious)

  1. (obsolete) Defective, having defects.
    • some one defectious piecea. 1587 (date written), Phillip Sidney [i.e., Philip Sidney], An Apologie for Poetrie. […], London: […] [James Roberts] for Henry Olney, […], published 1595, →OCLC; republished as Edward Arber...

Forms of defectious

comparativemore defectious
superlativemost defectious

Origin of defectious

From defect + -ious.

Questions about defectious

What does defectious mean?
Defectious means defective, having defects.
What part of speech is defectious?
Defectious is an adjective.
How do you pronounce defectious?
Defectious is pronounced /dɪˈfɛkʃəs/ (UK).

Words near defectious in the dictionary

  1. defection
  2. defectionism
  3. defectionist
  4. defectionists
  5. defections
  6. defectious
  7. defective
  8. defective matrices
  9. defective matrix
  10. defective number
  11. defective numbers

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: defectious (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “defectious.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/defectious. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.