Definition of "imperfect" in English

adjective

1. Not perfect,

2. (botany) Unisexual: having either male (with stamens) or female (with pistil) flowers, but not with both.

3. (taxonomy) Known or expected to be polyphyletic, as of a form taxon.

4. (grammar, of a tense or verb form) Representing a continuing or repeated action.

5. (obsolete) Lacking some elementary organ that is essential to successful or normal activity.

noun

1. Something having a minor flaw.

2. (grammar) A tense of verbs used in describing a past action that is incomplete or continuous.

verb

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, 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.