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Imperfect vs Impertinent - What's the difference?

imperfect | impertinent |

As adjectives the difference between imperfect and impertinent

is that imperfect is not perfect while impertinent is insolent, ill-mannered.

As nouns the difference between imperfect and impertinent

is that imperfect is something having a minor flaw while impertinent is an impertinent individual.

imperfect

English

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • Not perfect.
  • * Shakespeare
    • Why, then, your other senses grow imperfect .
  • * Milton
    • Nothing imperfect or deficient left / Of all that he created.
  • * Alexander Pope
    • Then say not man's imperfect , Heaven in fault; / Say rather, man's as perfect as he ought.
  • (botany) unisexual: having either male (with stamens) or female (with pistil) flowers, but not with both.
  • (taxonomy) Known or expected to be polyphyletic, as of a form taxon.
  • (obsolete) Lacking some elementary organ that is essential to successful or normal activity.
  • * Jeremy Taylor
    • He stammered like a child, or an amazed, imperfect person.

    Related terms

    * imperfection

    Synonyms

    * (not perfect) defective, fallible, faultful

    Antonyms

    * (not perfect) perfect, infallible, faultless * (unisexual) perfect

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • Something having a minor flaw
  • (grammar) A tense of verbs used in describing a past action that is incomplete or continuous.

    • impertinent

    English

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • insolent, ill-mannered
  • * Tillotson
    • things that are impertinent to us
  • * Jeremy Taylor
    • How impertinent that grief was which served no end!
  • irrelevant (opposite of pertinent)

    • Usage notes

    Although, historically, definition 2 was the original (derived from the French below) usage; meaning gradually changed to definition 1. More recently general usage has come to, once again, incorporate definition 2. As many older speakers will consider definition 2 incorrect, avoiding the word altogether may be advisable. The construction "not pertinent" is one possible alternative.

    Synonyms

    * See also

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • An impertinent individual.
  • * (Maria Edgeworth)
    • comfortably recessed from curious impertinents
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