different between defect vs impediment

English

Etymology

From Middle French defaicte, from Latin defectus (“a failure, lack”), from deficere (“to fail, lack, literally 'undo'”), from past participle defectus, from de- (“priv.”) + facere (“to do”).

Pronunciation

• (noun) enPR: d?'f?kt, IPA^(key): /?di?f?kt/
• (verb) enPR: d?f?kt', IPA^(key): /d??f?kt/

Noun

defect (plural defects)

1. A fault or malfunction.
2. The quantity or amount by which anything falls short.
   • 1824, Lydia Sigourney, Sketch of Connecticut

     and the indefatigable application with which they have supplied the defects of early culture.

3. (mathematics) A part by which a figure or quantity is wanting or deficient.

Usage notes

• Adjectives often used with "defect": major, minor, serious, cosmetic, functional, critical, fatal, basic, fundamental, main, primary, principal, radical, inherent

Synonyms

• See also Thesaurus:defect

Related terms

• defective
• defeat
• deficiency
• deficient
• deficit

Translations

Verb

defect (third-person singular simple present defects, present participle defecting, simple past and past participle defected)

1. (intransitive) To abandon or turn against; to cease or change one's loyalty, especially from a military organisation or political party.
   • 2013 May 23, Sarah Lyall, "British Leader’s Liberal Turn Sets Off a Rebellion in His Party," New York Times (retrieved 29 May 2013):

     Capitalizing on the restive mood, Mr. Farage, the U.K. Independence Party leader, took out an advertisement in The Daily Telegraph this week inviting unhappy Tories to defect. In it Mr. Farage sniped that the Cameron government — made up disproportionately of career politicians who graduated from Eton and Oxbridge — was “run by a bunch of college kids, none of whom have ever had a proper job in their lives.”

2. (military) To desert one's army, to flee from combat.
3. (military) To join the enemy army.
4. (law) To flee one's country and seek asylum.

Derived terms

• defection
• defector

Translations

Further reading

• defect in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• defect in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

Dutch

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin d?fectus, d?fectum.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /de??f?kt/
• Hyphenation: de?fect
• Rhymes: -?kt

Adjective

defect (comparative defecter, superlative defectst)

1. broken, not working

Inflection

Synonyms

• kapot

Noun

defect n (plural defecten, diminutive defectje n)

1. A defect.

English

Etymology

From Middle English impediment, borrowed from Latin impedimentum.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?m?p?d?m?nt/

Noun

impediment (plural impediments)

1. A hindrance; that which impedes or obstructs progress.
   • 1549, The Booke of Common Prayer and Administracion of the Sacramentes, “Of Matrimonye,”^[1]

     I require and charge you (as you will aunswere at the dreadefull daye of iudgemente, when the secretes of all hartes shalbee disclosed) that if either of you doe knowe any impedimente why ye maie not bee lawfully ioyned together in matrimonie, that ye confesse it.

   • c. 1592, William Shakespeare, Richard III, Act V, Scene 2,^[2]

     Thus far into the bowels of the land

     Have we marched on without impediment.

   • 1720, Alexander Pope, letter to Robert Digby dated 20 July, 1720, in Mr. Pope’s Literary Correspondence for Thirty Years; from 1704 to 1734, London: E. Curll, 1735, p. 129,^[3]

     Your kind Desire to know the State of my Health had not been unsatisfied of so long, had not that ill State been the Impediment.

   • 1993, Carol Shields, The Stone Diaries, Toronto: Random House of Canada, Chapter Two, p. 64,^[5]

     Patterns incised on this mineral form seem to evade the eye; you have to stand at a certain distance, and in a particular light, to make them out. This impediment is part of the charm for him.

2. A disability, especially one affecting the hearing or speech.

   Working in a noisy factory left me with a slight hearing impediment.

   • 1611, King James Version of the Bible, Mark 7.32,^[6]

     And they bring unto him one that was deaf, and had an impediment in his speech; and they beseech him to put his hand upon him.

   • 1730, Joseph Addison, The Evidences of the Christian Religion, London: J. Tonson, Additional Discourses, Section 10, p. 308,^[7]

     Let us suppose a person blind and deaf from his birth, who being grown to man’s estate, is by the Dead-palsy, or some other cause, deprived of his Feeling, Tasting, and Smelling; and at the same time has the impediment of his Hearing removed, and the film taken from his eyes […]

   • 1858, Thomas Carlyle, History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Leipzig: Bernhard Tauchnitz, Volume 2, Book 5, Chapter 6, p. 9,^[8]

     Better for you not to be tall! In fact it is almost a kindness of Heaven to be gifted with some safe impediment of body, slightly crooked back or the like, if you much dislike the career of honor under Friedrich Wilhelm.

   • 1931, Dashiell Hammett, The Glass Key, New York: Vintage, 1972, Chapter 3, p. 56,^[9]

     […] Walter Ivans replied as rapidly as the impediment in his speech permitted.

3. (chiefly in the plural) Baggage, especially that of an army; impedimenta.
   • 1913, Thomas McManus, “The Battle of Irish Bend” in The Twenty-Fifth Regiment Connecticut Volunteers in the War of the Rebellion, Rockville, Connecticut, p. 36,^[10]

     We were all on foot, officers and men alike. Our horses, baggage, and impediments had been left at Brashear to follow the column of General Emory.

Synonyms

• hindrance
• obstruction
• obstacle
• See also Thesaurus:hindrance

Derived terms

Related terms

• impede
• impedimenta

Translations

References

• John A. Simpson and Edward S. C. Weiner, editors (1989) , “impediment”, in The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition, Oxford: Clarendon Press, ?ISBN
• Douglas Harper (2001–2021) , “impediment”, in Online Etymology Dictionary

Romanian

Etymology

From Latin impedimentum

Noun

impediment n (plural impedimente)

1. impediment

Declension