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The Collaborative International Dictionary
Disfigurement

Disfigurement \Dis*fig"ure*ment\, n.

  1. Act of disfiguring, or state of being disfigured; deformity.
    --Milton.

  2. That which disfigures; a defacement; a blot.

    Uncommon expressions . . . are a disfigurement rather than any embellishment of discourse.
    --Hume.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
disfigurement

1630s, from disfigure + -ment.

Wiktionary
disfigurement

n. The result of disfigure; the state of being disfigured; defacement; deformity; disfiguration.

WordNet
disfigurement
  1. n. an appearance that has been spoiled or is misshapen; "there were distinguishing disfigurements on the suspect's back"; "suffering from facial disfiguration" [syn: disfiguration, deformity]

  2. the act of damaging the appearance or surface of something; "the defacement of an Italian mosaic during the Turkish invasion"; "he objected to the dam's massive disfigurement of the landscape" [syn: defacement, disfiguration]

Wikipedia
Disfigurement

Disfigurement is the state of having one's appearance deeply and persistently harmed medically, such as from a disease, birth defect, or wound. General societal attitudes towards disfigurement have varied greatly across cultures and over time, with cultures possessing strong social stigma against it often causing psychological distress to disfigured individuals. Alternatively, many societies have regarded some forms of disfigurement in a medical, scientific context where someone having ill will against the disfigured is viewed as anathema. In various religious and spiritual contexts, disfigurement has been variously described as being as a punishment from the divine for sin (such as Yahweh's defacement of Cain for Abel's murder in Judaism), as being (such as Paul of the New Testament's arguments about Christ's sufferings) caused by supernatural forces of hate and evil against the good and just, which will be later atoned for, or as being without explanation per se with people just having to endure.

The topic has been frequently commented on and referred to in a great many forms of fictional media as well. Villainous examples include the iconic fiend The Joker from various DC Comics and the mysterious figure with a "red right hand" from the song of the same name by band Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. Heroic examples include Daredevil, a crime-fighter who was rendered blind (from Marvel Comics), and the compassionate character Edward Scissorhands from the film of the same name.

Usage examples of "disfigurement".

To cover this disfigurement, he wore a padded dobra embroidered with much gold thread and much larger than the skullcaps of the other Architects.

Down at Montpellier, Gilbert, the Englishman, suggested red light for smallpox because it shortened the fever, lessened the lesions, and made the disfigurement much less.

Among the reasons why they so persistently hunted the earl, his air of a smart correctness shadowed by this new absurdity invited them, as when a spot of mud on the trimmest of countenances arrests observation: Humour plucked at him the more for the good faith of his handsome look under the prolific little disfigurement.

Some women, he knew, wanted to keep their babies in spite of malformations and disfigurements, but most were relieved to dispose of them as quickly and quietly as possible.

I, on the other hand, have done nothing for this world except kill good men and horses, give the orders that caused the deaths or maimings or disfigurements of God knows how many more, burn manors and villages, and condoneif not actually performedrape, torture, murder, and pillage.

Although I am, of course, aware of your medical background, I still cannot bring myself to tell you exact details of the appalling, hideously agonizing things that those beasts did to me over the months that they held me, things which caused me to scream for the mercy of death, to piteously beg in vain, to pray, even, that whatever power there may be grant me the boon of death, of final surcease from the endless rounds of tortures, maimings, disfigurements, and mutilations.

There was Birthmark Sweetlocks, who was known to have been present at the killing of the logwood-cutters, so that his hideous scarlet disfigurement was put down by the fanciful as being a red afterglow from that great crime.

Neither spellbinder nor Sorcerer belabored the tragedy, that if Traithe's faculties were still whole, or if this crisis had been met by any other member of the Fellowship, Felirin's disfigurement might be ameliorated.

Their brutal faces had been reshaped into leathery masks of disjoined cartilage and torn flesh, and their powerful bodies were adorned with religious tattoos and ritual disfigurements.

I accept it, as one accepts and learns to live with disfigurement, handicaps of various sorts, and accidents of birth and fate.

In what millionth millennium did a fingerbud appear - a bump, dismissable as some mutant growth, wart, scar, disfigurement - except that it was mirrored millennia later by a like one on the flat opposing flipperside?

Unlike the masquer, the cloaker's facial mask was transparent, showing the glory of its host's disfigurements.

Gradually the fragments caught together re-united, heaving, rocking, dancing, falling back as in panic, but working their way home again persistently, making semblance of fleeing away when they had advanced, but always flickering nearer, a little closer to the mark, the cluster growing mysteriously larger and brighter, as gleam after gleam fell in with the whole, until a ragged rose, a distorted, frayed moon was shaking upon the waters again, re-asserted, renewed, trying to recover from its convulsion, to get over the disfigurement and the agitation, to be whole and composed, at peace.

Physical hazing in fraternities and sororities was supposed to have been banned from campus since deaths and disfigurements and serious injuries had occurred not many years before.

The child had her lord father's square jut of jaw and her mother's unfortunate ears, along with a disfigurement all her own, the legacy of the bout of greyscale that had almost claimed her in the crib.