noun
definition
Something having a minor flaw
definition
(grammar) a tense of verbs used in describing a past action that is incomplete or continuous
synonyms
verb
definition
To make imperfect
adjective
definition
Not perfect
synonyms
definition
Unisexual: having either male (with stamens) or female (with pistil) flowers, but not with both.
definition
Known or expected to be polyphyletic, as of a form taxon.
definition
Lacking some elementary organ that is essential to successful or normal activity.
definition
(grammar) belonging to a tense of verbs used in describing a past action that is incomplete or continuous
Examples of imperfect in a Sentence
Communications are still very imperfect, but have been greatly improved of late years.
Even an exceptional salesperson has an imperfect memory.
Any division or classification of states must be imperfect.
But obviously in either the octave or the fifth, if the tuning is imperfect, beats occur all along the line wherever the tones should coincide with perfect tuning.
Ammonia can be synthesized by submitting a mixture of nitrogen and hydrogen to the action of the silent electric discharge, the combination, however, being very imperfect.
The document is imperfect, owing probably to the accidental loss of its last leaf.
If it should be objected that the wings so developed would be rudimentary, and that there would be nothing to encourage their development into perfect functional organs, we may remind the reader that we have already pointed out that imperfect wings of Exopterygota do, even at the present time under certain conditions, become perfect organs; and we may also add that there are, even among existing Endopterygota, species in which the wings are usually vestiges and yet sometimes become perfectly developed.
Elsewhere moderate re-entrants between the ranges have a continuous beach, concave seaward; such re-entrants afford imperfect harbourage for vessels; Monterey Bay is the most pronounced example of this kind.
After all, however, even these powerful Frankish conquerors had but imperfect success in Germany.
Crystals have imperfect cleavages parallel to the eight faces of the pyramid c 12011.
Obligations may be either perfect or imperfect.
Remove the stems and cull any imperfect berries.
Whether a pouch is present or not, the young are born in an exceedingly imperfect state of development, after a very short period of gestation, and are immediately transferred by the female parent to the teats, where they remain firmly attached for a considerable time; the milk being injected into their mouths at intervals by means of a special muscle which compresses the glands.
The above statements, though correct as far as they go, are an imperfect account of the nature of the radiation from a coupled antenna, but a mathematical treatment is required for a fuller explanation.
These materials, imperfect as they are, when combined with the notices derived from ancient writers and the evidence of archaeological excavations, may be considered as having furnished some results of reasonable certainty.
But there are gaps in Kant's system - a imperfect gap between sensation and the sense-forms of time and space; a gap between sense-forms and thought; a gap between the lower but practicable processes of the Understanding and the higher but unrealizable ideas of Reason.
It is reasonable to hold that the supreme personality is the only fully personal being, while ours is a broken and imperfect personality, hindered by the Non-ego which in other ways helps it.
The above summary gives, indeed, a very imperfect idea of the extent to which the remains of the great Minoan civilization are spread throughout the island.
The difference between the highest and lowest price, we may observe, is a very imperfect indication of the range of movement (though, taken in conjunction with the standard deviation, it is the best at our disposal), because either of the extreme prices might be accidental and quite out of relation to all others.
Donaldson, The Apostolical Fathers (1874), which, however, suffers from the imperfect state of the texts when he wrote.
Many candidates qualifica- approach the calling with a very imperfect a reciaPP g Y P PP tion of its exacting character.
There is no trace of the Semitic imperfect in Egyptian.
About the Artist I use watercolors to create imperfect portraits, in which the mutilation is a metaphor for genuine experience.
At The Imperfect Parent you can find individual blogs about the show.
Among the later viceroys the Conde de Revillagigedo (1789-1794) deserves mention as a progressive ruler who developed commerce and improved administration, and took the first, but very imperfect, census, on which Humboldt based his estimate of the population in 1803 at 5,840,000.
It is known to us only from 16th century versions of it published by Leland, Holinshed and Duchesne, all more or less imperfect and corrupt.
His visit afforded her but a very partial satisfaction, while his own enjoyment in it appeared so imperfect.
Still more instructive for Schopenhauer was the imperfect and obscure Latin translation of the Upanishads which in 1801-1802 Anquetil Duperron had published from a Persian version of the Sanskrit original.
This feeble echo of the full response to stimulus is an idea, which is thus only another word for imperfect organization or adjustment.
But gradually this imperfect correspondence is improved, and the idea passes over again into the state of unconscious or organic memory.
A perfect obligation is one which is directly enforceable by legal proceedings; an imperfect or moral obligation (the naturalis obligatio of Roman law) is one in which the vinculum juris is in some respects incomplete, so that it cannot be directly enforced, though it is not entirely destitute of legal effect.
A perfect obligation may become imperfect by lapse of time or other means, and, conversely, an imperfect obligation may under certain circumstances become perfect.
The obligation, however, remains, though imperfect, for if there be a subsequent acknowledgment by the debtor, the debt revives, and the imperfect obligation becomes again perfect.
Samuel von Triewald (1688-1743) played a very imperfect Dryden to Dalin's Pope.
This inslation, though still regarded as canonical by the Parsees, shows, very imperfect knowledge of the original language.
From considering the nature of diabetes, he had come to the conclusion that many cases were due to imperfect oxidation of sugar in the body; that this oxidation was normally carried out by a ferment in the muscles, and that probably the disease was in some cases dependent upon absence of the ferment.
It is probable that the kidneys also have an internal secretion, and that the great oedema sometimes found in kidney disease is rather due to the action of some proteid body resembling in its effects the streptococcus anti-toxin, than to accumulation of water due to imperfect action of the kidney.
Imperfect digestion is very often caused by defective teeth or by undue haste in eating, so that the food is bolted instead of being sufficiently masticated and insalivated.
Complete knowledge is impossible; nay, what we call knowledge of any part of the system is inherently imperfect.
It is this strong grasp of the imperfect character of our knowledge of nature and of the grounds for its limitation that makes Butler so formidable an opponent to his deistical contemporaries.
Of imperfect things, the highest are angels and human beings, who by virtue of the possession of reason are akin to the Divine and superior to the lower creation.
Some of the flowers are often imperfect, the stamens or pistil being more or less aborted.
In laying the foundations of a science of ancient chronology he relied sometimes upon groundless, sometimes even upon absurd hypotheses, frequently upon an imperfect induction of facts.
The young (which, as in other marsupials, leave the uterus in an extremely small and imperfect condition) are placed in the pouch as soon as they are born; and to this they resort temporarily for shelter for some time after they are able to run, jump and feed upon the herbage which forms the nourishment of the parent.
The last satire is now imperfect, and the authenticity both of this and of the fifteenth has been questioned, though on insufficient grounds.
The mere performance of relative or imperfect duties, they would have said, is something neither good nor evil; the essential constituents of human good is ignored.
That bacteria have existed from very early periods is clear from their presence in fossils; and although we cannot accept all the conclusions drawn from the imperfect records of the rocks, and may dismiss as absurd the statements that geologically immured forms have been found still living, the researches of Renault and van Tieghem have shown pretty clearly that large numbers of bacteria existed in Carboniferous and Devonian times, and probably earlier.
It must be borne in mind that the reports of these speeches which have come down to us were made from hearsay, or at best from recollection, and are necessarily therefore most imperfect.
So difficult was the country and so imperfect the liaisons that it was not till the 2gth that the deployment of the I., II.
But his documents also gave only very imperfect indications of the occasions of many of the utterances; and the result of his method of procedure has been to give us an exceedingly effective representation of the teaching of Jesus.