faults

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fault

top: normal fault

center: reverse fault

bottom: strike-slip fault

fault

(fôlt)

a. A character weakness, especially a minor one.

b. Something that impairs or detracts from physical perfection; a defect. See Synonyms at blemish.

c. A mistake; an error: a grammatical fault; a fault in his reasoning.

d. A minor offense or misdeed: committed her share of youthful faults.

2. Responsibility for a mistake or an offense; culpability. See Synonyms at blame.

3. Geology A fracture in the continuity of a rock formation caused by a shifting or dislodging of the earth's crust, in which adjacent surfaces are displaced relative to one another and parallel to the plane of fracture. Also called shift.

4. Electronics A defect in a circuit or wiring caused by imperfect connections, poor insulation, grounding, or shorting.

5. Sports A service of the ball that violates the rules in tennis and similar games.

6. Archaic A lack or deficiency.

v. fault·ed, fault·ing, faults

v.tr.

1. To find error or defect in; criticize or blame: faulted the author for poor research; faulted the book for inaccuracies.

2. Geology To produce a fault in; fracture.

v.intr.

1. To commit a mistake or an error.

2. Geology To shift so as to produce a fault.

3. Sports To commit a fault, as in tennis.

Idioms:

at fault

1. Deserving of blame; guilty: admitted to being at fault.

2. Confused and puzzled.

find fault

To seek, find, and complain about faults; criticize: found fault with his speech.

to a fault

To an excessive degree: generous to a fault.

[Middle English faulte, from Old French, from Vulgar Latin *fallita, from variant of Latin falsa, feminine past participle of fallere, to deceive, fail.]

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

faults

Infringements that end a rally. If the server commits a fault, the serve passes to the opponent. If the non-server does so, the server wins a point.

Translations

vizio

References in classic literature ?

For, if you reflect a moment, you will see that, while it is easy to choose what virtues we would have our wife possess, it is all but impossible to imagine those faults we would desire in her, which I think most lovers would admit add piquancy to the loved one, that fascinating wayward imperfection which paradoxically makes her perfect.

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EVERY MAN, according to an ancient legend, is born into the world with two bags suspended from his neck all bag in front full of his neighbors' faults, and a large bag behind filled with his own faults.

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She went to a shelf and took down a heavy quarto, bound in black leather, and inscribed, in red letters, MY FAULTS. This she threw irreverently on a desk, and tossed its pages over until she came to one only partly covered with manuscript confessions.

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There are five dangerous faults which may affect a general:

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If a person who prys into the characters of others, with no other design but to discover their faults, and to publish them to the world, deserves the title of a slanderer of the reputations of men, why should not a critic, who reads with the same malevolent view, be as properly stiled the slanderer of the reputation of books?

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He had the not very common type of mind that perceives the merit in others more readily than their faults, and in himself the faults more readily than the merit.

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'Faults!' she cried, bursting into passionate tears.

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And again every detail of his quarrel with his wife was present to his imagination, all the hopelessness of his position, and worst of all, his own fault.

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I am a wanderer and an exile, entirely through the fault of others.

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A sensibility too tremblingly alive to every affliction of my Freinds, my Acquaintance and particularly to every affliction of my own, was my only fault, if a fault it could be called.

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Also, Anna declared that it was solely through my own fault that my fortunes declined after she had bettered them; that she is in no way responsible for what then happened; and that I have but myself to blame for having been either unable or unwilling to defend my honour.

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``is it just and reasonable to punish one person for the fault of another?''

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