Word Finder - defects

definition

A fault or malfunction.

example

a defect in the ear or eye; a defect in timber or iron; a defect of memory or judgment

definition

The quantity or amount by which anything falls short.

definition

A part by which a figure or quantity is wanting or deficient.

definition

To abandon or turn against; to cease or change one's loyalty, especially from a military organisation or political party.

definition

To desert one's army, to flee from combat.

definition

To join the enemy army.

definition

To flee one's country and seek asylum.

The defects of Descartes lie rather in his apparently imperfect apprehension of the principle of movements uniformly accelerated which his contemporary Galileo had illustrated and insisted upon, and in the indistinctness which attaches to his views of the transmission of motion in cases of impact.

Defects in their arguments have been exposed to view by those who are most concerned to defend their reputation.

Daru, in his history of Venice, mentions fourteen between the years 1207 and 1365, the most important being that of 1361-1364, - a revolt not of the natives against the rule of their Venetian masters, but of the Venetian colonists against the republic. But with all its defects their administration did much to promote the material prosperity of the country, and to encourage commerce and industry; and it is probable that the island was more prosperous than at any subsequent time.

His qualities and his defects were alike exhibited on a generous scale; and if his greed and arrogance were colossal, so were his administrative capacity and his appetite for work.

Two supplementary parts were issued in 1835 and 1840 respectively, and the work for many years deservedly maintained the highest position as the authority on European ornithology-indeed in England it may almost without exaggeration be said to have been nearly the only foreign ornithological work known; but, as could only be expected, grave defects are now to be discovered in it.

There were moreover special local causes such as undoubted defects in the Natal administration.'

He discerned their capabilities, studied their characters, and sought to remedy their defects by frank and searching criticism.

The town of Bourke, lying on the upper Darling, may be taken as an example of many of the interior districts, and illustrates peculiarly well the defects as well as the excellencies of the climate of the whole region.

Modern mathematicians may find on reading this brilliant summary a good many dicta which they will call in question, but, whatever its defects may be, Peacock's report remains a work of permanent value.

Twenty years of experience and observation had revealed the defects of the earlier legislation, and had concentrated public attention more intelligently than ever before upon the problem of strengthening the weak spots.

While failing to correct all the defects in the original statute, the amended law was a decided step in the direction of efficient regulation.

To remedy these defects vestibules were introduced, to enclose the platform with a housing so arranged as to be continuous when the cars are made up into trains, and fitted with side doors for ingress and egress when the trains are standing.

The apology for the necessary defects of a translation put forward by the translator of Ecclesiasticus in his Prologue shows that the work was carried on beyond the limits of the Law.

Mill was earnestly opposed to the transfer, and the documents in which he substantiated the proud boast for the Company that "few governments, even under far more favourable circumstances, have attempted so much for the good of their subjects or carried so many of their attempts to a beneficial issue," and exposed the defects of the proposed new government, are models of trenchant and dignified pleading.

No economic doctrine so well illustrates the achievements and the defects of modern economic analysis.

The combination of these three facts will of itself explain some defects, or even retrogressions, observable in Nitzsch's later systematic work when compared with that which he had formerly done.

The scientific training which Bacon had received, mainly from the study of the Arab writers, showed him the manifold defects in the systems reared by these doctors.

While Jerusalem possessed these advantages, Antioch was not without its defects.

Poggio's History of Florence, written in avowed imitation of Livy's manner, requires separate mention, since it exemplifies by its defects the weakness of that merely stylistic treatment which deprived so much of Bruni's, Carlo Aretino's and Bembo's work of historical weight.

His duties are described in detail by the king's regulations, but may be summed up as consisting of seeing that the charges are in order, pointing out any informalities or defects in the charges or in the constitution of the court, seeing that any witness required by prosecutor or prisoner is summoned, keeping the minutes of the proceedings, advising on matters of law which arise at any time after the warrant for the courtmartial is issued, drawing up the findings and sentence, and forwarding the minutes when completed to the admiralty.

Notwithstanding some obvious moral and intellectual defects, he was the most eminent and the most disinterested of those who had co-operated with William I.

With all its defects, Der fliegende Hollander is the most masterly and the least unequal of Wagner's early works.

To handle these so successfully that we can discriminate defects from qualities at all, is proof of the technique of a master, even though the faults extend to whole categories of literature.

But the material was also subject to other defects, such as moisture lurking between the layers, which might be detected by strokes of the mallet; spots or stains; and spongy strips (taeniae), in which the ink would run and spoil the sheet.

The conclusion of peace was welcomed by Selim as the opportunity for carrying out reforms, of which he thoroughly realized the necessity in every branch of the administration, and especially in the army, to whose defects the disasters of the state were due.

We find in them the same beauties and the same defects that we observe in the production of the Iranian authors.

Organization and tactics did not affect the issue directly, for the conduct of the men and their junior officers gave abundant proof that in the hands of a competent leader the " linear " principle of delivering one shattering blow would have proved superior to that of a gradual attrition of the enemy here, as on the battlefields of the Peninsula and at Waterloo, and this in spite of other defects in the training of the Prussian infantry which simultaneously caused its defeat on the neighbouring field of Auerstadt.

His chief defects as a historian are want of imagination and an undignified familiarity of style, which, however, at least preserves his history from the dulness by which lack of imagination is usually accompanied.

He served in the Congress of the Confederation from 1783 to 1786 and was there conspicuous for his vigorous insistence upon the right of the United States to the navigation of the Mississippi River, and for his attempt, in 1785, to secure for the weak Congress the power to regulate commerce, in order to remove one of the great defects in the existing central government.

In the Itthon (At Home), by Alois Degre (1877), the tale is made the medium for a satirical attack upon official corruption and Hungarian national vanity; and in the Almok dlmodoja (Dreamer of Dreams), by John Asboth (1878), other national defects are aimed at.

Educability, defects or excellences, or peculiarities of mind or body, can be handed on from parent to offspring by protoplasmic continuity in reproduction.

Blemishes in the stock, defects of mind or body, though they may be to some extent corrected in the individual by training, cannot be got rid of from the stock by any such process.

A defective stock, if allowed to breed, will perpetuate its defects, in spite of the concealment of those defects in an individual by training or other treatment.

But the trying winter campaign in the Crimea also brought into prominence defects perhaps traceable to his long connexion with the formalities and uniform regulations of military offices in peace time.

Bertillonage exhibited certain defects which were first brought to light in Bengal.

At the risk no doubt of some defects of culture, the newer education cleared the way for a more positive temper, awoke a new sense of accuracy and of verification, and created a sceptical attitude towards all conventions, whether of argument or of practice.

Thus the defects, whether of this secretion or of that, and again of motor activity, the state of the valvular junctions, the volume of the cavities, and their position in the abdomen, may be ascertained, and dealt with as far as may be; so that, although the fluctuations of chemical digestion are still very obscure, the application of remedies after a mere traditional routine is no longer excusable.

But even in these books defects are present, which appear much more strongly in the singular olla podrida entitled Essai sur les me urs, in the Annales de l'empire and in the minor historical works.

Nowhere, perhaps, except when he is dealing with religion, are Voltaire's defects felt more than here.

As regards the generation of electric energy, by pointing out defects of design in the dynamo as it existed about 1878, and showing.

With the exception of the heavier flint (lead) glasses, these can be produced so as to be free both from noticeable colour and from such defects as bubbles, opaque inclusions or " striae," but extreme care in the choice of all the raw materials and in all the manipulations is required to ensure this result.

It must be admitted that, by the aid of certain of these new constituents, glasses can be produced which, as regards purity of colour, freedom from defects and chemical stability are equal or even superior to the best of the " ordinary " glasses, but it is a remarkable fact that when this is the case the optical properties of the new glass do not fall very widely outside the limits set by the older glasses.

While such minute and gradual variations are harmless for most optical purposes, sudden variations which generally take the form of striae or veins are fatal defects in all optical glass.

The pieces of glass are then examined for the detection of the grosser defects, and obviously defective pieces are rejected.

To make a really good mirror of glass two things are required - a plate free from bubbles and striae, and a method of applying a film of metal with a uniform bright surface free from defects.

The earliest writers upon cholera emphasized its remarkable preference for particular places; and the history of each successive epidemic implies, besides an importation of the contagion, certain local conditions which may be either general sanitary defects or peculiarities of climate and soil.

In spite of a too indulgent view of his hero's defects, and some over-credulity, Arrian's is the most complete and trustworthy account of Alexander that we possess.

But the only hitherto apparent evidence of such defects is an excessive clinging to the letter of the law; a marked reluctance to exercise discretion; and that, perhaps, i5 attributable rather to the habit of obedience.

In spite of their artistic defects, these specimens were exported in considerable numbers by merchants in the foreign settlements, and their first cost being very low, they found a not unreniunerative market.

Now, however, they have lost these defects and entered a period of considerable excellence.