fault

fault n

1 "imperfection, deficiency, shortcoming

Analogous words: flaw, defect, *blemish: weakness, infirmity (see corresponding adjectives at WEAK)

Antonyms: excellence

2 Fault, failing, frailty, foible, vice are comparable when they mean an imperfection in character or an ingrained moral weakness.

Fault implies failure, but not necessarily serious or even culpable failure, to attain a standard of moral perfection in disposition, deed, or habit

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have many virtues and few faults

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he is all fault who hath no fault at all— Tennyson

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our modern appreciativeness is often only the amiable aspect of a fault—an undue tolerance for indeterminate enthusiasms and vapid emotionalism— Babbitt

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Failing is even less censorious than fault, for it usually implies a shortcoming, often a weakness of character for which one is not entirely responsible or of which one may not be aware

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pride . . . is a very common failing, I believe— Austen

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a knowledge of his family failings will help one man in economizing his estat e— Quiller-Couch

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while in other statesmen these failings are usually thought of as sorrowful necessities, in Lloyd George they are commonly held to show his essential nastiness— Sykes

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Frailty often implies a weakness in character which makes one prone to fall when tempted

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God knows our frailty, pities our weakness— Locke

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The term therefore often denotes a pardonable or a petty fault

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a purely human frailty, like a fondness for detective stories— Lowes

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Foible denotes a harmless, sometimes an amiable, sometimes a temperamental, weakness or failing

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I can bear very well to hear my foibles exposed, though not my faults— Shenstone

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he had all the foibles of the aesthete— Buchan

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Vice (see also OFFENSE 3) is stronger than fault and failing in its suggestion of violation of the moral law or of giving offense to the moral senses of others, but it does not necessarily imply corruptness or deliberate defiance of the law and may be rather a general term attributable to an imperfection or flaw that impairs the soundness of a character or an ability

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knowledge . . . of all the virtues and vices, tastes and dislikes of all the people— Galsworthy

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she had been proud. She was criminally proud. That was her vice— Bennett

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as Professor Whitehead has lately said, the intolerant use of abstractions is the major vice of the intellect— Inge

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Analogous words: weakness, infirmity (see corresponding adjectives at WEAK): flaw, defect, *blemish

Antonyms: merit

Contrasted words: *excellence, virtue, perfection

3 dame, culpability, guilt

Analogous words: responsibility, answerability, accountability (see corresponding adjectives at RESPONSIBLE): sin, *offense, crime