Crossword clues for imperfect
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Preterimperfect \Pre`ter*im*per"fect\, a. & n. [Pref. preter- + imperfect.] (Gram.) Old name of the tense also called imperfect.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
Wiktionary
a. 1 Not perfect. 2 (context botany English) unisexual: having either male (with stamens) or female (with pistil) flowers, but not with both. 3 (context taxonomy English) Known or expected to be polyphyletic, as of a form taxon. 4 (context obsolete English) Lacking some elementary organ that is essential to successful or normal activity. n. 1 Something having a minor flaw 2 (context grammar English) A tense of verbs used in describing a past action that is incomplete or continuous.
WordNet
n. a tense of verbs used in describing action that is on-going [syn: progressive, progressive tense, imperfect tense, continuous tense]
Wikipedia
The imperfect is a verb form, found in various languages, which combines past tense (reference to a past time) and imperfective aspect (reference to a continuing or repeated event or state). It can therefore have meanings similar to the English "was walking" or "used to walk." It contrasts with preterite forms, which refer to a single completed event in the past.
Traditionally, the imperfect of languages such as Latin and French is referred to as one of the tenses, although in fact it encodes aspectual information in addition to tense (time reference). It may be more precisely called past imperfective.
When used in relation to English, "imperfect" refers to forms much more commonly called past progressive or past continuous (like was doing or were doing). These are combinations of past tense with specifically continuous or progressive aspect.
The term can take on specific conventional meanings in the grammars of particular languages. In German, Imperfekt was used to refer to the simply conjugated past tense (to contrast with the Perfekt or compound past form), but the term Präteritum (preterite) is now preferred, since the form does not carry any implication of imperfective aspect.
"Imperfect" comes from the Latin "unfinished", because the imperfect expresses an ongoing, uncompleted action. The equivalent Ancient Greek term was paratatikós "prolonged".
The imperfect, or past imperfective, is a verb form in linguistics.
Imperfect or imperfection may can also mean:
- The opposite of perfect or perfection, in many different meanings
- "Imperfection" (Star Trek: Voyager), a TV episode
- Imperfect (film), a 2012 Singapore release
Imperfect is a 2012 Singapore action film, directed by Steve Cheng, produced by Li Nanxing and starring Liu Kai Chi, Li and Chiang Tsu-ping. It was officially released in cinemas on August 30, 2012, in Singapore.
Usage examples of "imperfect".
Such a work is now attempted--would it were by another and abler hand-- which, imperfect as it is, may at least offer some useful suggestions, give a right direction to political thought, although it should fail to satisfy the mind of the reader.
The beach at Vung Tau, once the foundation of our union, has been replaced by a night on Yen Phu Street in Binh Khoi, and no edifice built upon such imperfect stone could be other than cracked and deficient.
Twelve-score Changes are an imperfect Peal, being only a third part of the Changes which are to be made on six Bells, and therefore not to be brought round, unless the last Extream Change is made out of course.
The Coleridgian sonnet is not only imperfect in form and in marked contrast in the frequent bathos of its close to the steady swell and climax of Wordsworth, but, in by far the majority of instances in this volume, it is wanting in internal weight.
They had explored, though only in an imperfect manner, the vast shore of Washington Bay from Claw Cape to Reptile End, the woody and marshy border of the west coast, and the interminable downs, ending at the open mouth of Shark Gulf.
They have also a well-developed bony palate, which in the Duplicidentata is imperfect, forming in fact but a narrow bridge from one jaw to the other.
Prepared in this imperfect manner, they rill be found to be much more reliable than any of the fluid extracts found in the drug-stores.
These two cases are fundamentally different, for, as just remarked, in the union of two pure species the male and female sexual elements are perfect, whereas in hybrids they are imperfect.
The sterility of hybrids, which have their reproductive systems imperfect, and which have had this system and their whole organisation disturbed by being compounded of two distinct species, seems closely allied to that sterility which so frequently affects pure species, when their natural conditions of life have been disturbed.
Rattle-snake Reason and instinct Recapitulation, general Reciprocity of crosses Record, geological, imperfect Rengger on flies destroying cattle Resemblance to parents in mongrels and hybrids Reversion, law of inheritance Rhododendron, sterility of Richard, Prof.
Hence the variations of color seen in ancient paper writings, as already stated, were due not only to possible imperfect admixtures of the component parts of the inks, but to the use of vegetable gums in their preparation.
So as your tendons, cartilage, and nerves rub against the newly formed, yet imperfect, bone, the joints can become inflamed.
In fact, poor Jones was one of the best-natured fellows alive, and had all that weakness which is called compassion, and which distinguishes this imperfect character from that noble firmness of mind, which rolls a man, as it were, within himself, and like a polished bowl, enables him to run through the world without being once stopped by the calamities which happen to others.
Silence lasted rather a long time, but that unnatural felicity was imperfect, and increased my excitement.
There are small spots on the fore neck, lower portion of the sides, and outside of the limbs, the spots in the neck forming an imperfect gorget.