different between mysterious vs imperfect

English

Etymology

From Middle French mystérieux.

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -??ri?s
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /m??st???i.?s/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /m??st??i.?s/

Adjective

mysterious (comparative more mysterious, superlative most mysterious)

1. Of unknown origin.

   Synonym: untraceable

2. Having unknown qualities.

   Synonyms: esoteric, uncertain, undefined; see also Thesaurus:mysterious

   Hyponyms: anonymous, faceless, unexplored, unnamed, long-mysterious
3. Difficult to understand.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:incomprehensible

4. Deliberately evasive or enigmatic.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:covert

Derived terms

• mysteriously
• mysteriousness

Related terms

• mystery

Translations

English

Etymology

From Middle English imperfit, from Old French imparfit (modern French imparfait), from Latin imperfectus. Spelling modified 15c. to conform Latin etymology. See im- +? perfect.

Pronunciation

• (adjective, noun) IPA^(key): /?m?p??(?)f?kt/, /?m?p??(?)f?kt/
• (verb) IPA^(key): /?mp?(?)?f?kt/

Adjective

imperfect (comparative more imperfect, superlative most imperfect)

1. not perfect

   Synonyms: defective, fallible, faultful, faulty

   Antonyms: faultless, infallible, perfect
2. (botany) unisexual: having either male (with stamens) or female (with pistil) flowers, but not with both.

   Antonym: perfect

3. (taxonomy) known or expected to be polyphyletic, as of a form taxon.
4. (obsolete) lacking some elementary organ that is essential to successful or normal activity.
   • 1653, Jeremy Taylor, Twenty-five Sermons preached at Golden Grove; being for the Winter Half-year, "Christ's Advent to Judgment"

     He […] stammered like a child, or an amazed, imperfect person.

5. (grammar) belonging to a tense of verbs used in describing a past action that is incomplete or continuous

Related terms

• imperfection

Translations

Noun

imperfect (plural imperfects)

1. something having a minor flaw
2. (grammar) a tense of verbs used in describing a past action that is incomplete or continuous

   Synonym: preterimperfect

Derived terms

• imperfective

Translations

Verb

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

1. (transitive) to make imperfect
   • 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,^[1]

     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.

   • 1716, Thomas Browne, Christian Morals, 2nd edition edited by Samuel Johnson, London: J. Payne, 1756, Part I, p. 43,^[2]

     Time, which perfects some things, imperfects also others.

   • 1962, Alec Harman and Wilfrid Mellers, Man and His Music: The Story of Musical Experience in the West, Oxford University Press, Part I, Chapter 5, p. 126,^[3]

     […] such was their desire for greater rhythmic freedom that composers began to use red notes as well. […] Their value was […] restricted at first, for redness implies the imperfecting of a note which is perfect if black […]

Romanian

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /imper?fekt/

Adjective

imperfect m or n (feminine singular imperfect?, masculine plural imperfec?i, feminine and neuter plural imperfecte)

1. imperfect

Declension

Antonyms

• perfect

Related terms

• imperfec?iune