imperfect

Adjective

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...
   • 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...

   Synonyms:

   defective, fallible, faultful, faulty

   Antonyms:

   faultless, infallible, perfect

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

   Antonyms:

   perfect

3. Known or expected to be polyphyletic, as of a form taxon.
4. Representing a continuing or repeated action.
5. (obsolete) Lacking 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...

Noun

imperfect (plural imperfects)

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

   Synonyms:

   past imperfect tense, past imperfect, preterimperfect

Verb

IPA/ɪmpə(ɹ)ˈfɛkt/

imperfect (third-person singular simple present imperfects, present participle imperfecting, simple past and past participle imperfected)

1. (transitive) to make imperfect
   • 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.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
   • 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