defective

From Middle French défectif

• (UK) IPA^(key): /dɪˈfɛktɪv/

• Audio (US)

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• Rhymes: -ɛktɪv

defective (comparative more defective, superlative most defective)

1. Having one or more defects.
   • 2013 March, Morowitz, Harold J., “The Smallest Cell”, in American Scientist‎, volume 101, number 2, United States: Sigma Xi, ISSN 0003-0996, OCLC 645082957, page 83:

     It is likely that the long evolutionary trajectory of Mycoplasma went from a reductive autotroph to oxidative heterotroph to a cell-wall–defective degenerate parasite. This evolutionary trajectory assumes the simplicity to complexity route of biogenesis, a point of view that is not universally accepted.

2. (grammar, of a lexeme, especially a verb) Lacking some forms; e.g., having only one tense or being usable only in the third person.
3. (Arabic grammar, of a verb) Having a root whose final consonant is weak (ي, و, or ء).

• Nouns to which "defective" is often applied: merchandise, goods, part, component, product, equipment, gene, unit, construction, design, drug, memory, wiring, machine, device, instrument, hardware, software, vehicle.

• faulty

• complete
• perfect

• defect
• defection
• defector
• deficiency
• deficient
• deficit

defective (plural defectives)

1. A person or thing considered to be defective.
   • 2007 January 15, Bernard E. Harcourt, “The Mentally Ill, Behind Bars”, in New York Times‎:

     There were many more kinds of mental institutions at mid-century, ones for “mental defectives and epileptics” and the mentally retarded, psychiatric wards in veterans hospitals, as well as “psychopathic” and private mental hospitals.

• Wikipedia article on defective verbs

defective (comparative plus defective, superlative le plus defective)

1. defective (having defects)